


Reunions

by villainsarebetter (darkling59)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e18 Heart of Gold, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, One Shot Collection, Rumbelle - Freeform, This was supposed to be a series posted over the week, be wary: the Rumple feels are strong with this one, the hero feels not so much, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-03-23 13:57:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3770818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkling59/pseuds/villainsarebetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...Or, six alternate ways that Rumple and Belle could have met face to face (without any masks or illusions) in season 4B.</p><p><b>1:</b> Rumple has a heart attack in Storybrooke and Belle comes to see him in the hospital.<br/><b>2: </b>When Belle's heart is stolen to be used as leverage against the Dark One, Rumple gets it back and returns it to Belle.<br/><b>3: </b>The elixir vial is destroyed and, facing his own mortality, Rumple goes to a confused and alarmed Belle to say goodbye.<br/><b>4: </b> The heroes manage to capture Rumple after a fight with Zelena and Belle comes to visit him in his prison cell.<br/><b>5: </b> Rumple gets a little ‘help’ when speaking to Belle at the well. Almost pure fluff (...literally). Because this season NEEDS fluff.<br/><b>6: </b> When the Apprentice is released from the hat early, Rumple's plans unravel in unpredictable ways.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after 'Heart of Gold' and before 'Sympathy for the De Vil'. Some of the one-shots will include information pertaining to the 'heart spoiler' from last week.

**_1\. Rumple has a heart attack in Storybrooke; Belle comes to see him in the hospital._ **

It was sudden.

Rumpelstiltskin was standing outside the diner talking to Maleficent and Cruella while Regina looked on with a dark scowl on her face, bristling at the way they were wasting time especially at such an early hour. What few townspeople were around at five in the morning were giving the villains a wide berth, but most were too groggy-eyed to do more than stare or gape in confusion for a few seconds before scurrying on their way. The Charmings were not amongst their number; Storybrooke’s ruling family was home asleep and the sheriff’s office was still and silent until 8am (which _might_ have had something to do with Rumple’s choice of timing).

Everything was relatively quiet and peaceful and he was just about to snap at Cruella for another crack about his height when a horrible –and horribly _familiar_ \- pain pierced the left side of his chest. Instantly, he gasped and staggered, clutching at his shirt over the offending organ.

 _Not now._ He silently begged his failing body, knowing instinctively that his magic would not help this time – not without the elixir. _Not yet!_

But the pain came again, a single sharp burst that lit his entire chest on fire – _He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t see-! –_ and consciousness fled on a sea of darkness.

He didn’t see the catty smirks dropping to concern on the faces of Cruella and Maleficent, nor did he see the shock on Regina’s face as he folded completely and hit the pavement less than twenty seconds after the first pangs.

He didn’t hear the wail of sirens cut the still morning air of Storybrooke.

* * *

Belle was woken up by frantic pounding on the door of the pawn shop. She groaned, pushing herself up onto her elbows from where she’d been collapsed on the cot in the back room and groping for her phone on a nearby shelf so she could check the time. She didn’t need to be at the library until ten and the sheriffs didn’t usually bother her before 8 (even the savior and prince Charming needed their beauty sleep) so hopefully…

_6:40_

For a split second, Belle warred with the idea of going back to bed, but the frantic pounding started again and she sat up with a defeated sigh. After all, if someone wanted her at _this_ hour, then there had to be an emergency. She shuffled to the front of the shop, putting her clothes and hair to rights as she went – she was a deft hand by now, having done it dozens of times since Rumple had…left. With him gone, the house felt too big, too empty…too accusing. His possessions cluttered the shelves, his clothes were in the closet, and even his favorite cane was propped up next to the door – she could practically feel its presence every time she passed, the sense of ‘ _You did this. He’s gone because of you. He couldn’t even walk and you left him to die.’_

She knew she’d done the right thing when she stopped him.

She also knew she’d probably destroyed Rumple’s love for her by doing it.

By the time she reached the counter, she was completely collected and her mood had soured considerably. There was only one crisis the heroes were likely to come to her about and it was one she seriously did not want to think about.

 _Please don’t be about Rumple._ She prayed as she unlocked the door. _Please…_

“Belle!”

“Will?” She blinked in shock. He was standing square in the doorway with his hands braced on the edges, panting harshly like he’d run all the way from the forest and his eyes were wide, the whites showing all the way around. But he didn’t look scared…she couldn’t really figure out what the expression on his face meant. “What’s…?”

“Did you hear?” He cut her off. Maybe he _was_ excited. “Did you know?”

At her flummoxed expression, he swallowed and tried to collect himself, but nothing could hide the tension in his frame.

“I-uh-It’s Gold. Rumpelstiltskin.”

Belle felt her spirits crash and her shoulders slumped. “What did he do now?”

“He…well…” Now Will looked undecided. “You…really don’t know? You didn’t hear about it?”

“Hear _what_? Will…”

“The ambulance.”

Belle froze, every thought in her head screeching to a halt. It felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped down her spine.

“Ambulance?” She whispered, a lump in her throat.

“Yeah. I’m…sorry. I really thought you knew.” And he did look contrite – Will _knew_ she wasn’t over her husband and he did not judge her for it. That was one of the reasons she liked him. But that wasn’t important right now.

“What happened?” She forced the words out. Her hands were trembling, she suddenly realized, and she clenched them into fists to force them to stop. “Did…Emma…?”

“Nah, the heroes had nothing to do with it. According to Whale, it was a heart attack.”

A heart attack. Not magic, or a spell, or a curse. A mundane threat.

One that was often deadly no matter what world you were in.

“Is he-?” She whispered and Will drew her into an awkward hug. She clenched her hands in his shirt, taking comfort from his physical presence and trying to ignore the voice that whispered in the back of her head, telling her she was hugging the wrong person.

“Hey, I’m sure he’s fine. They got to him fast.” He tried to comfort, but he was lousy at lying and she could hear the doubt in his voice.

“I have to go to him.” She pulled away, eyes roving aimlessly around the shop looking for anything that could help. Her purse was on the counter and she pulled it close, dumping wands and potions and anything she could think of that might have healing properties inside.

“Are you sure?” Will followed her closely but didn’t try to stop her, just lending his steady presence. It was comforting, but it wasn’t enough. “I mean, I thought you and he…well…didn’t you want to avoid him?”

Did she?

The whole time he’d been gone, she’d been worried about what he’d do if he ever came back. She knew what he’d done to Milah and how he’d felt about Cora, and she also knew she’d betrayed his trust and love with what she did. Granted, she’d had good reason what with his lying and attempted murder, but she wasn’t sure that would be enough to stay his hand. She’d left him more alone and powerless than Milah and more heartbroken than Cora – both offenses that he might take to mean she’d never loved him, that she was manipulating him. She knew how paranoid and broken he was inside and it was quite possible he’d interpreted her actions as a betrayal she’d been planning all along and react with deadly fury.

But he’d been back for weeks and he hadn’t even approached her, had shown no signs of hostility towards her or Will, not even when he’d tricked her into giving him the Dagger. (And as much as that hurt, she couldn’t fault him for wanting it back, not after what she’d done. Not after how the heroes had reacted to the very thought of his having autonomy over his own soul.)

She didn’t even pause.

“He’s my husband, Will.” She clicked her bag closed with a definitive ‘snap!’ and turned a pleading gaze on the thief, the man she’d only known a couple months who stood beside her when she was alone, who she thought she might be able to love, given time. If there was anyone who would understand her plight, it was him.

 _Not the only man who stood by you._ That same damnable voice whispered in her mind. _Will’s not the one that saved you. He’s not your True Love._

Will sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I get it. I’ll help you.”

“Thanks.” She mustered up a weak smile and wrapped her arms around his neck in a quick hug.

Together, they set off for the hospital.

* * *

It was surprisingly quiet when they entered and Belle hoped that was a good sign. A haggard looking Dr. Whale saw them and approached, tucking a hip flask into his pocket as he went. (Belle sincerely hoped she never needed him to be _her_ doctor.)

“He’s over there.” Whale waved a hand towards the nearest hallway, one with ICU wards at the other end. To his credit, he didn’t sound pleased at Rumpelstiltskin’s condition – but then, the two of them had always had an odd sort of relationship.

Belle swallowed. “Is-Is he…?”

Whale sighed heavily. “He’s stable. That’s about all I can tell you. It wasn’t a massive heart attack, but his reaction was…not good. He hasn’t woken up yet and we’re not sure when he will. Or if he will.”

Belle swallowed harshly, unable to meet his gaze and nodded, a single hard jerk.

“Thank you.” She squared her shoulders and turned towards the room, towards Rumple.

“Wait.” The hand on her arm was surprisingly steady and she looked back at Whale. “Do you…” He bit his lip, grimaced, and foraged on. “Do you know his medical history?”

“What?” She exchanged a blank look with Will. ‘Medical history’ wasn’t a term they used back home and Whale had all of the medical records of everyone in town on tap so there was no reason to use it in Storybrooke.

When the doctor started scrabbling for his flask again, Belle knew she wouldn’t like what he had to say.

“He has signs of recent surgery and professional medical care.” He took a swig, refusing to look at Belle. “It looks like he was treated for a heart attack recently.”

“…What?” She whispered, feeling like the bottom had dropped out of her stomach.

Whale shrugged uncomfortably. “Possibly two or three heart attacks, actually. Probably within the last couple months.”

Since she’d banished him from Storybrooke.

Oh God, what had she _done?_

Without another word, without even looking back at Will, she turned and ran for his room, skidding on the slick floor. It felt like it took forever, but within a minute she found herself standing at the entrance to a hospital room, looking at Rumple for the first time in almost three months.

He looked _horrible_. There were machines and wires all over his chest, a plastic tube stuffed down his throat, and an IV trailing from his wrist. His hair was lank and lifeless, greyer than she remembered, his skin was pale and sallow, and there were dark hollows under his eyes and a worried crease between his brows even though he was not awake. In the blocky hospital bed and the flimsy clothes provided, Rumple looked small and short, diminished somehow. Broken, lost, and alone.

Was this because she’d thrown him out of Storybrooke? Had she done this to him?

It was only when Will’s hand squeezed her shoulder in reassurance that she realized she was standing rigid in the doorway, just staring at her husband. Tears were dripping down her face, but she didn’t notice.

She stepped tentatively into the room, feeling like she was invading some sort of sanctum, and stopped at his side. She didn’t notice when Will said something about giving her some time alone and asking if she wanted coffee, nor did she notice when his hovering presence vanished down the hallway.

“Rumple?” Her voice broke between syllables. The almost-unfamiliar man in the bed didn’t answer.

She reached out and took his hand where it lay limp on the starched white sheets, running her fingers over his knuckles until she noticed his wedding ring, nestled where it had been since their marriage. Even when he’d had no money in the outside world, when he must have been having a rough time making ends meet, he hadn’t taken it off or sold it for food.

She’d taken hers off within a week of his departure, when it reminded her of him in all the wrong ways and looking at it hurt too much to bear.

Belle sniffed, running her thumb over the smooth golden band, wondering if she’d done the right thing, if she hadn’t acted the coward she’d accused Rumple of being, if there’d been any other way, and what would have happened if she’d listened rather than lashing out. Then she clasped his hand in hers and squeezed it gently.

There was no response. Only the machines’ infernal beeping, the whoosh of the air through the breathing tube, and the cool, limp hand in her grasp.

She closed her eyes, letting the tears run free, and stayed by his side.

* * *

It was hours later that something changed.

Hours full of Will bringing her coffee and a chair and trying to cheer her up, of an obviously drunk Whale shooting her vaguely guilty and vaguely sympathetic stares, of heroes coming in to gawk and demand answers, of probing eyes peering around the doorway, of villains who occasionally stood in the corners of the room and simply watched. The only good change was when Whale declared Rumple was stable enough to remove the oxygen tube.

But finally, in the late afternoon, the hand she was holding twitched. She watched with bated breath as his eyelids scrunched and then slowly slitted open, looking at the unfamiliar hospital room in vague confusion and alarm before finding her eyes and widening in surprise, hope, and…she really hoped she was wrong and that was not fear.

“Belle?” His voice cracked, sounding terribly dry, uncertain, and so lost that she wanted to start weeping all over again.

“Hey.” She shot him a watery smile.

“Are you really here this time?”

Her heart nearly shattered at the helpless disbelief in that short sentence. He was Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One, the man who exuded power just by virtue of his presence – nothing should have been able to make him sound so broken.

“I’m here.” She squeezed his hand, trying to smile. It came out more like a watery grimace. There was so much still wrong; he’d hurt her so badly and she was just beginning to understand that she’d hurt him too; but he was _alive_. And that was what mattered. Everything else could wait.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: this installment includes a supposed spoiler for 'Sympathy for the De Vil'. I'm not sure how valid it is because I never saw the webpage myself before it was yanked, but it generated a plot bunny so I decided to run with it. The spoiler (DON'T read any further if you don't want to know) is that Regina is going to steal Belle's heart to use as leverage against Rumple.
> 
> Another warning: This chapter turned out to be a bit more critical towards the heroes and Belle than I'd intended. Hopefully not too much, but I can't really tell.  
> I'm just really, really frustrated with the 'good guys' this season.
> 
> Basically, if you believe in the unfaltering inherent goodness of the heroes (and Regina) and their actions, and/or that Rumple is the one solely responsible for the state of his and Belle's relationship, this chapter probably isn't for you.

**_2\. When Belle's heart is taken as leverage, Rumple steals it back and returns it to Belle._ **

Rumpelstiltskin knew what had motivated Regina into taking Belle's heart. He could even sympathize with the need to protect one's True Love at any cost.

That did not mean he was going to let her get away with it.

When faced with the Dark One's fury, she paled and tried to put on a brave face, to pretend she was something more than a human sorceress who'd gotten in over her head. She seemed to think he would care that she was claiming to be taking the moral high ground.

He didn't care. He wasn't interested in a deal. She'd crossed the line and he was more than willing to force her to pay the consequences and this time Belle wasn't around to hold him back from his vengeance, as brutal, bloody, and deserved as he could make it.

In the end, what saved her life was Henry. Rumple knew his grandson cared for Regina and that harming her would mean harming Bae's boy. And while he had a temper, he also had three hundred years’ worth of self-control and experience pulling the demon of his curse back from the edge of madness. It was enough to make him grit his teeth and reign in his anger long enough to give Regina a chance to make the right choice (not that she deserved another chance...). But he did not hold back the suffocating darkness that filled the crypt - enough to destroy all of Storybrooke if he let it loose - nor did he change his inhuman reptilian eyes back to their human appearance.

This time, staring straight into the eyes of the demon that was the Dark One at his full potential, Regina wasn't foolish enough to defy him.

Without a second glance at the fallen sorceress, Rumple transported himself and the reclaimed heart away, leaving Regina to the mercy of Maleficent and Cruella.

* * *

It was hard to care without a heart.

Belle knew she should care. She remembered caring. She remembered staring at Regina in horror and telling her she was no better than Rumpelstiltskin, and hearing Regina say that what she was doing was in the name of True Love, as if that excused anything. After all, everything Rumple had ever done was in the name of True Love for Bae or for Belle, and he'd suffered horribly for it.

She still felt betrayed, but it was more of a dull acknowledgement than an actual emotion. Dispassionately, she knew she would never trust Regina again...and probably not the rest of the heroes either. They hadn't helped much when she told them what Regina had done and they'd verified Belle's heartless state; they'd just exchanged uncomfortable looks and said that they'd look into it but Regina must have a reason, it was probably only temporary, if Regina had done it then it must have been necessary, they were sure she'd give it back when she was done...

They hadn't been happy about Regina's decision, but they'd stood by it. Because they trusted her.

Just like they had since Neverland. Despite her past crimes, Regina was always given forgiveness and the benefit of the doubt.

Belle never would have been so critical before losing her heart, she realized eventually. She had forgiven Regina. She was supposed to have faith in the goodness of heroes and believe that everyone deserved forgiveness.

Well, not everyone...

Her final memory of Rumple was of him collapsing to his knees in pain, begging her to understand or even just listen - not for forgiveness, just for a chance to be heard - and of herself refusing to look at him, walking away with his Dagger heavy in her hand. Why was he always the exception? Because he was the Dark One? Everyone knew most of those fairytales were sensationalized nonsense, especially in Storybrooke- he wasn't the bogeyman, he was just a man. A cursed and powerful one who often hid behind clever words and beastly masks, but just as deserving as forgiveness as everyone else, right?

Huh. The Dagger was like his heart, wasn't it? Did he feel this emotionally disconnected all the time? That would explain a lot. Without the burden of emotions clouding her mind, Belle wasn't really certain why she hadn't just asked him what he was doing in the clock tower instead of forcing him to follow her orders and walk over the town line. It would have been easier to demand the truth and figure out what to do once she understood what was going on.

Oh. She could feel emotions. That was regret.

She remembered she'd wanted him to be a hero, to be her hero...but maybe not so much as _she'd_ wanted to be a hero.

Was that why she'd done it? Because he'd tried to act the perfect husband and fallen short? Because he'd revealed he was still cursed with darkness and not a hero? Why had that been a surprise? He was the Dark One - that hadn't changed. Had she played up their love so much in her mind during their separation that the reality was a disappointment? Had she even been seeing him when they got married, or some reflection of an ideal that never existed?

The only person he'd tried to kill that horrible night was Hook (though to hear the pirate talk about it, Rumple had been going after the town next. Not even the Charmings believed that one.), and he hadn't succeeded - anyone else would have spent less than a night in a cell and been released the next day with a stern talking to. Come to think of it, most of the heroes had been excused for attempted homicide within fifteen minutes of the fact (though villains and misunderstandings were quite different than premeditated murder). Even King George had been excused when he murdered Gus and tried to get Ruby killed (...which wasn't so different).

But not Rumple. Because she'd forced him over the town line without even his cane.

Oh yes, that was _definitely_ regret.

She couldn't trust the heroes. She couldn't trust Rumple. Who _could_ she trust? Will? Probably, but she didn't want him to see her like this. He had a deep seated fear of being heartless, for some reason.

Without her heart, she could not summon the righteousness and belief (in herself and the heroes) that normally gave her refuge from such self-recrimination.

The whole time she was thinking, Belle was standing behind the counter in the pawnshop and staring blankly at Rumple’s chipped cup (because as much as it had come to symbolize their love - fragile and imperfect, but strong enough to weather anything, it had always belonged to him). He had saved it from the curse, kept it safe for 28 years, taken vengeance when someone dared to steal it, and fixed it when she'd broken it. He’d kept faith in their love even when he thought she was dead, when she'd had amnesia, and when she'd been Lacey. He'd never forced her to do anything - he'd always abided by her decisions - even stayed away when she told him to, given her time and space and let her find her own feet until she came back on her own terms.

...And she had taken everything, leaving him with nothing.

Had he deserved that? Maybe. Had she done the right thing? Emma and her parents thought so. Belle wasn't sure anymore. Maybe Rumple had put his faith in the wrong person. Maybe she had.

But she couldn't forget that he'd lied to her and manipulated her, regardless of his reasons. Not that she _knew_ his reasons because he hadn't even trusted her enough for _that._

"...Belle?"

She jumped, startled at the tentative voice behind her. She'd been so lost in thought; she hadn't even noticed another presence.

"Y-?" She stopped halfway through turning around, eyes wide. Rumpelstiltskin stood in the middle of the shop eyeing her warily...and holding a pulsing bright red jewel gently between his cupped hands.

Just by looking at it, she could tell it was hers. She could feel it.

Her first instinct was relief - her True Love had gotten her heart back for her, had saved her! - but it was quickly supplanted by a rush of foreboding.

She looked at his face with wide eyes and swallowed. She wasn't scared of him. She wasn't. He'd been around town long enough to take revenge if that's what he'd wanted. He was the darkest sorcerer in existence cradling her vulnerable pulsing heart in his hands and she was _not_ afraid.

His eyes darted over her conflicted expression and his tentative, almost eager expression twisted, briefly hitting on regret before fading into a neutral mask. She could see his shields coming up and couldn't help feeling ashamed for crushing whatever hope he'd had.

"Rumple." Her voice was calm, emotionless to a degree that startled even her. "What are you doing here?"

He quirked an incredulous eyebrow and pointedly held up her heart. "I found something that belongs to you."

She briefly wet her lips, unsure how to take that. "Is Regina alright?"

That's what she was supposed to ask, right?

A frown touched his face before being hidden behind his mask and he gave a blasé shrug. She stiffened when he took a step towards her and he stopped.

"I can't put it back from all the way over here, dearie." He snapped and she closed her eyes, trying not to feel hurt. He hadn't called her dearie since before she'd been cast out of the Dark Castle - that was what he called strangers and clients that he didn't trust or hold in high estimation.

Her eyes flew open when she felt a light touch at the front of her shirt - she hadn't even heard him move! - and she sucked in a startled gasp as he gently eased the heart back into her chest. All at once, her emotions returned and so did her control. The dispassion she'd been using to view her own thoughts dissolved. She nearly collapsed crying at the influx of tangled emotions, bowing her head and clutching the shirt over her chest where he'd replaced her heart as tears welled up.

Regina had stolen her heart.

Rumple had brought it back.

She looked back to him with watery eyes. He was staring at her in open concern, the mask having faded completely. His hands were out to catch her if she fell, but they were hovering as if he wasn't sure she'd welcome his touch. His emotions were clear on his face, at least to her: Worry, fear, regret, love...

He still loved her, even after everything that had happened. He’d hurt her, possibly too badly for her to ever trust him again, but he still loved her.

"Thank you." She whispered, voice broken, and reached out a hand for him.

His eyes widened and tentative, disbelieving hope stole into his expression, gentling it considerably. Abruptly he obviously came to a decision, determination giving him courage, and he reached out to catch her hand with his own.

"Belle, I have to tell you -"

"BELLE! We need your help! We've lost contact with Regina and-!" The door suddenly slammed open, cracking hard against the wall and revealing Emma and David backed by Hook and Snow, all of them rushing and spoiling for a fight.

Rumple dissolved into red smoke before Emma had completed the first word, evaporating from out of Belle's very hands before any of the heroes even realized who was there.

Just before he vanished, she would swear he growled: "Every damned time!"

Belle couldn't agree more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I'll be able to get another installment up this evening before the episode's premier.
> 
> It's going to be SUPER angsty, though. The prompt is: The vial of elixir is destroyed and, facing his own mortality, Rumple goes to a confused and alarmed Belle to say his goodbyes.
> 
> After that, I want to get into some fluffy stuff because this is getting EXTREMELY depressing. But once my 'Rumple isn't the only one in the wrong!' feels are out, I'll be able to focus elsewhere!
> 
> ...Provided tonight's episode doesn't crush any fluff left in my soul.


	3. Chapter 3

**_3\. The vial of elixir is destroyed and, facing his own mortality, Rumple goes to a confused and alarmed Belle to say his goodbyes._ **

Belle was in the back room packing to go home and finishing some last minute stock inventory when she heard the bell over the door ring and she barely stifled a groan. The pawnshop had already been open an extra hour and she really just wanted to go home and curl up in front of the fireplace with a good book.

“I’ll be there in a second!” She called; half surprised no one had come barging in on her in the back. Whoever it was didn’t answer, but she heard soft steps wandering the store. Probably not Emma’s family, then, but who else would be coming to the pawn shop at this hour?

Whoever it was, at least they were polite enough not to disturb her while she was finishing her task.

She backed her way into the shop with an armload of antique books, talking as soon as she began to turn around. “Now then, how can I help y-?”

At the sight of her visitor, the books fell from suddenly nerveless arms and her friendly greeting ground to an abrupt halt.

Rumpelstiltskin was standing not three yards away, facing away from her. His gaze was fixed on the chipped cup, Belle realized, and it didn’t look like he was going to move. All she could really see was his greying hair and his black clothes, but she’d know him anywhere, from any angle.

She took a moment to gather her wits, pushing down her shock and slight fission of nervousness and pulling up the anger and betrayal that she’d used to justify her change of feelings about him. When she was ready, she held her head high and spoke firmly, voice as cold as she could make it.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” He responded. His tone was absent, almost robotic in its lack of feeling. He didn’t continue and Belle shifted uncomfortably.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” She finally snapped, trying not to regret the words as they passed her lips. But she wasn’t about to give him a chance to manipulate her; she’d already given him too many chances and she wouldn’t be his unwitting accomplice again.

His shoulders tightened and his head jerked slightly, obviously hurt by her dismissal (not _obviously._ He was manipulating her again. He _had_ to be.) but he didn’t react in anger or shame.

“I understand. I’ll try to make this quick.” While she was puzzling over what _that_ meant, he sighed and turned around, giving her the first look she’d had of him since that night at the town line.

He looked…sad. Defeated. His eyes were as unguarded as she’d ever seen them and what she saw in their liquid depths was resignation…and love, for her.

She tried to ignore the way her heart lurched in response and instead of comforting him, she wrapped her arms tightly around her midsection. It _had_ to be a lie. After what happened at the town line, what she’d done to him last time they spoke to each other that horrible day and what he’d done to her in the weeks leading up to that, love should be the last thing on his mind. Anger, hurt, rejection… _those_ were the emotions she’d expected. Those were what _she_ felt after what _he_ did.

Belle refused to be manipulated again.

“Well?” She snapped, but it wasn’t as sharp as she wanted, not after seeing the way he looked at her. Sharp enough to make him flinch, though.

He opened his mouth to talk but nothing came out and after a moment he let out an odd hitching breath, took a step back, and frowned.

“I had this all planned out, you know.” His eyes wandered from hers, instead losing focus and staring off into nothing. “After I came back, I was going to come to you, to explain, to _prove_ that I-.”

He cut off with another quiet hitching gasp.

“Then why didn’t you?” She questioned quietly. It might have made a difference if he’d come back then, before she’d found out in the worst possible way that he was up to his old tricks. If he’d really been going to -.

“I saw you. With _him_.”

Him. Will. _Oh._

She brutally crushed the guilt that tried to rise and prepared to kick him out for trying to play with her emotions (again) but he continued speaking, with no apparent hostility.

“I suppose that’s for the best, at this point.” His smiled, a small bitter thing.

“…What do you mean?” This was _not_ going how Belle had expected, and the abrupt left turn of the conversation was making her uneasy.

He glanced back at her, once again looking like he wanted to say something, but instead shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. I just wanted to make sure…does he make you happy?”

“Yes.” Belle narrowed her eyes, ready to lay into him if he so much as –

“Good.”

She startled almost comically. “…What?”

“Belle, I’m not a good man and I never have been. As you said, I’m a beast.” That same bitter smile, as if he was laughing at some internal joke that was painful rather than amusing. Suddenly, his eyes met hers, completely open and painfully sincere. “I want you to be _happy_ , Belle, even if it’s not with me.”

“Rumple…” Her slight unease was blossoming into full-blown worry. She knew the heart of him, much as she didn’t want to confront his lies, and she could feel the weight of his words. The two of them were teetering on some sort of precipice and she had no idea what it was. For the first time, concern nudged at the back of her mind. But why should she be concerned? He was the _Dark One_ and this was _Storybrooke._ He was practically invincible...wasn’t he?

He shook his head, that same sad twist on his lips. “It’s alright. I understand. I’m not a lovable man.”

“That’s not true.” He blinked at her, startled, and she tried to ignore the flicker of hope in his expression. “Rumple, we didn’t…what happened wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was because you…you…”

He what? Betrayed her? Lied to her? Used her? Tried to kill Hook? All of that and more.

He nodded, accepting her words with surprising grace. “I know. That’s why…when I was…I wanted to _explain…_ ”

The all-powerful Dark One lost for words. It was something few people (barring herself) had ever seen. Belle didn’t appreciate the novelty.

“Explain, then.” This time, her tone was not nearly as sharp.

That same odd, hitching breath interrupted his next attempt to speak and he grimaced, then tried again. “I’ll not take up that much of your time, dearie. By this point, I suppose the reasons don’t matter.”

“Then why did you come?” She wasn’t sure if she should feel hurt or painfully confused, but both emotions paled next to her creeping alarm. Something was very wrong with this situation.

“I just…wanted to see you.” That hitch was louder this time, an audible gasp, and his hand came up to brace against the side of his chest. He still wasn’t looking directly at her, instead staring slightly to her left. “And…I wanted to tell you that…you should be happy. I want you to get your happy ending.”

Now he was looking at her with eyes so painfully honest that Belle had to swallow thickly. He sounded…He sounded like he was saying _goodbye…_

“And-.” This time, the hitch devolved into a rough cough and the hand on his chest clenched until it was digging into the thick cloth of his coat. Without thinking, Belle stepped forward in concern, beginning to close the distance between them. At first, he didn’t notice, just regained control of himself and kept talking doggedly, forcing himself onwards despite obvious pain. “And I wanted to say, I’m sorry. For…I suppose, for everything. I have a list, but-.” His hand clenched and his slight frame twitched convulsively. “There isn’t time for that now.”

“Rumple, what’s going on?” His eyes widened and snapped to hers, looking shocked that she was almost within touching distance. From this close, she could see that he didn’t look well – there was a slight but undeniable grey pallor to his face, his lips were bloodless and pressed tightly together, and he was trembling from tension just standing there talking to her. “What’s wrong with you? Do you need me to call Dr. Whale?”

He let out a humorless laugh and side-stepped her concerned hands. “No need, dearie. There’s nothing he can do.”

“Rumple…?”

“Last thing, I promise.” From this close, she could hear the way his breath wheezed painfully with every inhale and when she put a hand on his chest, trying to ease away fingers that were so tightly clenched it _had_ to be painful, she could feel the beat of his heart. The _highly irregular_ beat of his heart. He rushed on before she could force him to explain. “I love you, Belle.”

The shock of the words, the raw honesty and pain in them, snapped her head up and attention away from his erratic heartbeat. She stared into his eyes, paralyzed with shock and indecision.

“I know…you’ve moved on. I understand.” He grimaced and the heart beneath her hand gave an unsteady _quiver_. “I wanted to tell you that I love you and…I want you to be happy _,_ whether it’s with me or not.” He emphasized the words he’d spoken earlier but all Belle could focus on was the way he flinched every time the beat under her hand twitched…and the way those twitches were rapidly increasing in number and intensity. Evidently, he could feel it too because he rushed on. “You can make your own happy ending, Belle, and you deserve it. You’re the kindest, most – _hnn!_ ”

He abruptly jackknifed, pulling away from her in obvious pain. He almost fell, but caught the side of a shelf at the last minute and clung to it doggedly.

“ _Rumple_!” Belle cried. She reached for him with one hand and snatched for her phone with the other. His physical well being was far more important than what he was trying to say, and how she felt. They could talk about it later, in as much detail as necessary. “Hold on! I’ll call Dr. Whale. If I help, can you use magic to get to the hospital?”

“Belle…”

“Don’t…Don’t do this, Rumple.” There were tears in her eyes, she realized. When had that happened? “You need _help._ Don’t shut out the people who can help you. Don’t shut _me_ out.”

“Belle…” It was more of a wheeze than anything, but after a moment he managed to stand up almost straight. His expression was resigned. “There’s nothing he can do. This isn’t something that medical science can cure.”

“What…?” She stared at him, phone still clutched in nerveless fingers though she hadn’t managed to make the call. “Magic? Is there a counterspell, a – a cursebreaker, a potion-?”

“No. Not anymore.” He withdrew and took another breath and a step towards the door.

“Rumple…” She reached for him but he backed away and shook his head.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, and you should find your happy ending no matter who it’s with. You’re in charge of your own destiny.” He shot her a slight smile, which faded to sadness. “And that I love you.”

“Wait, DON'T-!”

But she was too late; he dissolved into maroon smoke and all her grasping hands caught was air.

Belle stared at the suddenly empty shop, shaken and horrified. She couldn’t concentrate on what he’d said yet or on the implications – not with him in pain and…and…she couldn’t think the word. He was the Dark One, he was immortal and untouchable so long as he was in possession of his dagger and his magic, as she knew he currently was. He couldn’t be _dying_.

But she could not deny that something terrible was happening to him.

With shaking hands, she dialed Emma’s phone number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's probably one of the most depressing things I've ever written. Believe it or not, I do have a continuation in mind for this where the two of them get a more or less happy ending (with Henry's help) but I'm not sure if I'll post it. It doesn't really fit the theme.
> 
> Hopefully, the next chapter will be happier. It could take longer to get up, though.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3b. After Rumple's alarming goodbye, Belle tries to get to the bottom of what is happening to him, and finds out she's the only one who can save him. (Continuation of the previous prompt.)

_**3b. After Rumple's alarming goodbye, Belle tries to get to the bottom of what is happening to him, and finds out she's the only one who can save him. (Part 2)** _

The following conversation with Emma was enlightening in the worst possible way.

The sheriff didn’t want to tell Belle anything at first; she hemmed and hawed and avoided the librarian’s questions as long as possible until Belle tearfully told her she thought there was something wrong with Rumple. Then she went silent – not surprised, not worried, not upset…just uneasily _silent._

Then: “Look, Belle, I think there’s something you need to know…”

The explanation poured out, couched in the savior’s blunt and vaguely apologetic manner. Emma was trying to tell the whole story as it applied to the heroes, but Belle only had ears for Rumple’s parts.

_Apparently, using Regina’s inside information, the heroes had tried to storm the villains’ hideout. It had gone about as well as expected – Rumple felt them coming a mile off and was more amused than threatened. He, Maleficent, and Cruella led them on a merry chase through the forest, using tricks and mockery to turn them around and make them frustrated. They spent hours running in circles until night fell and, discouraged, they considered retreating._

_Then a newcomer arrived, appearing in a swirl of green smoke right in the midst of them all._

_Zelena._

Belle felt pure ice spike in her veins at the name and for the first time, she interrupted Emma’s story.

“That’s not possible. She’s _dead.”_

“Yeah…apparently not. Guess we should have realized that the giant freaking portal showing up when her body mysteriously vanished wasn’t a coincidence.” Emma sighed, sounding like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Belle wanted to scream – this was _urgent_ , Rumple was _in serious trouble_ , and that evil witch was still alive!

Guilt tweaked her conscience, though it wasn’t pressing. She’d been sure Rumple had killed Zelena; it was yet another thing she’d blamed him for lying about…

Finally, Emma continued.

_As soon as Zelena appeared, the other villains did too. They’d been playing the heroes individually, taking turns executing traps and mocking their pursuers, but this time they showed up together and none of them seemed happy about the intruder's presence. Maleficent took point and Rumple uncharacteristically stuck to the shadows. The reason why quickly became clear._

_Just like the last time Zelena had controlled him, this time she wanted to gloat._

Belle could feel bile rising in her throat as Emma described the green witch’s words, using general terms in an attempt to save Belle from the worst of it, but it didn’t work. She’d seen Rumple in the cage where Zelena made him live, listened to his nightmares, and held him while he sobbed and trembled from terrifying and humiliating flashbacks. The green-skinned woman was _evil_ and Belle knew enough about her capabilities to fill in the blanks in Emma’s explanation.

_Zelena had called Rumple out from the trees and he’d come to her in obvious reluctance, stopping in the no man’s land between Zelena and the heroes. He’d stayed still and silent as the witch explained, boasting about how she’d snuck through the portal to the past than back to the present as Marian, how she’d decided to take Regina’s True Love for herself, and how she’d gathered information on Rumple in Storybrooke and anticipated his banishment._

_They’d all wondered why the ice queen’s freezing spell had set back in after Marian’s initial recovery. Apparently, it never had – Zelena simply used a glamor as a reason to leave the town…and take Robin with her, away from Regina._

_She’d found Rumple in New York – or rather, Rumple had found her and Robin living in Bae’s apartment._

Something about that statement bothered Belle, but she did not focus on it. There would be time later.

_Before Zelena could make her move in New York, Rumple collapsed. Heart attack, Zelena explained to the heroes with relish. Only…not exactly. That was simply the most fitting explanation the doctors could come up with. It was actually a curse that could magically rip a person’s heart apart from the inside out until the heart-stone literally blackened, cracked, and crumbled to pieces – ‘the curse of the broken hearted’. Death was a long, painful, inevitable process._

_Rumple had been infected for a long time, as far back as the Enchanted Forest and at least a few years before Storybrooke. He’d been using magic to keep it at bay._

By this point, tears were pouring from Belle’s eyes and she had a hand over her mouth in horror. She’d forced him over the town line, separated him from the only thing keeping him alive…! But the harsh truths kept coming.

_There was one cure – The Elixir of the Wounded Heart. Somehow, Zelena had gotten her hands on it. It was the only thing that could cure Rumple and the green witch was holding it over his head, controlling him just as she had with the Dagger. If he didn’t do exactly as she said, he would die. He’d been getting progressively worse and she’d been keeping him alive with drops of potion, toying with him and forcing him to do her bidding._

_Such as forcing the Author to give her a happy ending._

_That was when the fighting broke out. Regina, Emma, Snow, David, and Hook all fought on the heroes’ side while Zelena forced Rumple to fight on her side and the other two villainesses vanished into the shadows. By all rights, it should have been a brutally short fight in Zelena’s favor but she misjudged, deciding to talk rather than finish Regina when she had the chance. She also underestimated Rumple; from the beginning of the fight, it was obvious he did not want anything to do with it and the most he did to any of them was toss them around a little. He could have killed them all with a snap of his fingers, but instead he chose relatively gentle means._

_After a botched attack on the Dark One, Charming found himself tossed through the air and landing directly behind Zelena where she was taunting Regina. He took a swing before she realized he was there and when she whirled to face him, in tandem with a fireball attack from Regina, the Elixir phial got caught in the middle. It smashed to pieces on impact with David’s sword._

_Instantly, the fight ground to a halt and all of them stared at the shattered glass and now-useless liquid dripping from the wicked witch’s hand. Zelena paled and tried to flee, but Rumple waved a hand and unceremoniously turned her into a snail. The rest of them had expected him to kill her, and half expected him to turn on them when he was done, but he didn’t. He just stood there over the broken phial, looking at the shattered glass and potion with a blank expression._

_Then he vanished – no smoke, no explanations, no anger, nothing._

_Zelena was still a snail, now being kept at the sheriff’s station, and no one had seen hide nor tail of Rumple since then._

_But based on Zelena’s words, and on how she’d said she was stringing him along with the potion and keeping him alive, if he didn’t take a dose by the time the sun rose, he would die._

By the time Emma finished speaking, Belle’s head was buried in her hands and her shoulders were shaking. Now, everything Rumple had said and done made sense.

“Do-.” Her voice broke so she cleared it. She couldn’t break down now. Rumple _needed_ her. “Do you know where he is?”

“Look, Belle…”

“Emma, he’s in pain. He might be dying. I can’t just-!”

“Alright, alright. I get it. I really do.” She sighed. But she didn’t sound nearly upset enough for Belle’s taste.

“I want to help with the search.”

“Belle-.”

“He’s my _husband_ -“

“It’s not that…It’s just…he didn’t seem like he wanted to be found, y’know?”

“You’re…not looking for him?”

An uneasy silence.

“He could be dying!”

“I’m sorry, Belle, but where would we even start?”

For a moment, Belle’s eyes darted frantically as she thought, considering and rejecting possibilities. Finally, she took a deep breath and nodded definitively.

“The villains.”

“What?”

“If anyone knows where he is, it’s them.”

“But they’re evil.”

“If you won’t do it, then give the phone to Regina. She’ll take me.”

Regina required some convincing, especially since her cover had been blown and the remaining two thirds of the queens of darkness were no less dangerous for the loss of their leader, but eventually she did agree to take Belle to the ‘evil lair’. She picked her up with magic and ten minutes later, Belle found herself facing two extremely unhappy sorceresses while Regina hovered uncomfortably in the next room (separated on Belle’s insistence). This was something she had to do alone.

She’d expected hostility and possibly anger, the potential that they would refuse to help unless she had leverage. With that in mind, she’d brought as many shielding charms as she could easily conceal and a few powerful little artifacts she thought she might be able to exchange for information, or at least for a postponement of hostilities.

She _hadn’t_ expected them to be using Rumple’s cabin and to be surrounded by a virtual _sea_ of alcohol bottles with a familiar movie playing on the television in the background. It took her a moment to realize it was ‘The Wizard of Oz’ showing the final action scene, and that the shattered glass surrounding the set meant at least half a dozen empty bottles had been sacrificed to the cause of ‘trying to smash in the wicked witch’s face’. (The poor television was a bit worse for wear – and if the scorch marks on the wall were any indication, it had been magically resurrected a few times before they turned to less destructive means.)

All of a sudden, Belle felt considerably better about her decision to go to them for help.

Unfortunately, their surprising willingness to help didn’t ultimately make them useful.

“Looking for the little imp?” Cruella tutted. “Don’t look here. He’s long gone.”

“But…surely he must have told you _something._ If that…that horrible woman has been controlling him with the elixir this whole time, then he had to have a backup plan, somewhere to fall back to, something. Or you could do a locator spell?” She had to bite off her words before calling Zelena something far less polite.

“Wish we could help, darling. But locator spells don’t work on the Dark One while his wards are up and we didn’t even know about _dearest Zelena_ until she interrupted our little game.” Both of their expressions twisted on the name. “Everything was going swimmingly until _she_ showed up. In fact, the only thing the miserable little imp ever talked about other than his plans and his deals was _you_.”

“…Me?”

“He was utterly besotted. It was pathetic. And you should have _heard_ what he said while we were driving from New York.”

“If I know Rumpelstiltskin, he’ll not want anyone to see his weakness.” Maleficent spoke for the first time, forcing the conversation back on track. She sounded more sober than Cruella but just as bitter. “He’ll have found the deepest, darkest hole within the town line and hidden himself away to die in peace. You won’t find him – when the Dark One hides something, it _stays_ hidden.”

“Figures.” Cruella muttered. “He _would_ crawl off to die and leave us with this mess...”

The bottom dropped out of Belle’s stomach. She’d been trying not to think it and repeatedly telling herself he would be okay, that there was something she could do…but they were talking about his death so casually and with such certainty. These were magic users who had been studying the craft for decades at the very least and knew the ins and outs of curses, spells, and potions from personal experience. If anyone would know what was happening to Rumpelstiltskin, it was them.

“No…No, you’re wrong.” Her voice wavered, but Belle refused to shrink back from their unamused stares. “I’m going to find him. And I _will_ help him.”

Cruella snorted in disbelief, but held up a half-full bottle of gin in mocking cheers. “Good luck, darling. Can’t wait to see how that turns out.”

Maleficent wasn’t quite as dismissive. Her gaze raked over Belle in consideration, but whatever conclusion she came to did not show in her expression. “If you do find him, tell him our business is not yet complete.”

And that was that.

Belle gave them one of her bartering chips as thanks for the information, and left with the sound of shattering glass in her ears from Cruella throwing another empty bottle at the on-screen wicked witch of the west.

Regina took Belle back to the pawnshop and left her at the door with a quiet and highly uncomfortable offer of condolences. Something had happened between her and Rumple before Zelena’s appearance, something she obviously felt guilty for now, but Belle had no idea what it was.

She hadn’t realized just how far out of the loop she was without Rumple keeping her up to date, but she was definitely seeing it now.

Now, she knew what was going on and she’d exhausted her avenues of investigation with the heroes and the villains; there was no help to be found there. She was on her own. Some small part of her wanted to break down and cry, wail at the unfairness of it all. An hour ago, she’d stood in this exact same spot and thought she never wanted to see Rumple again. Now that she’d realized she wanted him back and was prepared to fight for their love (to realize she should have been fighting all along), he might be beyond her reach.

But she didn’t let that creeping fear control her. Research was what she did best; if no one else would help, then she’d just have to save her True Love on her own.

* * *

Five hours later, as the clock tower struck 1am in the background, she sat on the floor behind the counter with her head buried in her hands and the chipped teacup cradled in her lap, shaking with silent sobs. The detritus of her research littered every flat surface in the store; the display cases, the counter, the floor…even the cot in the back room was covered in books and notes. She’d gone through every antique volume, looked at every potentially useful artifact, rooted through Rumple’s safe full of rare potions ingredients, and even tried a few textbook spells of her own to locate him. She’d driven all over town searching everywhere she knew he was connected to; Granny’s, the library, the clock tower, his house, her apartment over the library, even the apartment Bae had used in the short time he’d lived in Storybrooke.

She’d found nothing.

No Rumple.

No way to find him.

No cure.

All her research had turned up was one short paragraph of dialogue in the book that lay open in front of her: “The Elixir of the wounded heart heals what ails the heart, be it physical or magical. It is said to be the closest anyone has ever gotten to bottling True Love, so that even the darkest of curses and the most serious of ills might be driven back if the one inflicted should willingly ingest the potion.”

There was only one thing she could try, something she was almost frightened to consider after their long separation and how she’d spurned their love, but she couldn’t do it unless she could _find_ him, and all of her locator potions – the ones she had created and the ones Rumple had left for her to use back when they had been happy - turned to black sludge the second she added his name to the spell. The message was clear; he did not want to be found.

He was dying slowly and painfully, all alone and believing himself to be unloved and abandoned and _she could not find him._

Worse, if Emma’s information was to be believed, then Rumple had been experiencing this since the very moment Belle had forced him over the town line. Dying by increments as his magical heart was slowly consumed by the curse and cracked to pieces inside his chest.

However, it was only 1am and the curse would not claim him until dawn – she still had half the night to go and neither of them could afford for her to break down now. She was just trying to force herself into a second wind, staring into his chipped cup like it held all of the answers and scrambling mentally to think of any resources she hadn’t yet tapped, when the bell over the door jingled.

Startled but suddenly desperately hopeful that he’d come back on his own, she lunged to her feet and whirled to face-

“Henry?”

The teenager shot her a sheepish smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Hey Belle.” He smothered a yawn. “I heard about Mr. – uh - about Grandpa. How can I help?”

Warm affection kindled in Belle’s chest and she felt herself smile for the first time since Rumple’s visit. Of all the heroes and villains, she should have known Henry would be the one to care. Even though he hadn’t been close with Rumple (something she tried not to blame Snow and Charming about, even though she’d heard them cautioning Henry to stay away from the dangerous Dark One more than once), he’d never dismissed him as an irredeemable monster like most of the town. Besides, Rumple was his grandfather.

But it was 1am, Henry was thirteen years old, and there wasn’t a parent or grandparent in sight.

“Henry, did you sneak out?”

“No, of course not! Mom’s just, uh…at the station looking up property records! She wanted to help too.”

“Mhm.” Belle wished she believed it. She really _wanted_ to believe it. But she knew it was a lie. “Then I guess it wouldn’t be a problem if I called her then, would it?”

“Wait!” She stopped reaching for her cell phone at his protest and cocked an eyebrow in expectation. “Okay, yeah, I snuck out. But I did it because it was the right thing to do! Grandpa’s in trouble and he needs all of our help!” The teenager seemed to deflate and continued at a mumble. “I don’t know why they won’t listen. They’re the _good guys._ They’re supposed to do the _right thing._ ”

Belle’s smile was bittersweet. “Sometimes, not everyone agrees on what that is.”

“I guess.” He scrunched his face in dissatisfaction. “But it’s still wrong to hurt him – even if he is a villain. And he might not be! My mom cursed and tried to kill everyone in town and now she’s one of the good guys! He saved _all_ of us from Peter Pan and he never really tried to hurt anyone before that – well, not anyone who didn’t try to hurt you or Dad, anyway – so I’ll bet if we could just talk to him, convince him, he could be a hero! I mean, even after he got back the only person he seriously tried to hurt was Hook.”

“You don’t like Hook?”

“Well, he’s _okay…_ but he’s not my dad.” There was a sulky bitterness under the words of a child suddenly forced to share a parent. Henry was an exceptional boy, but in some ways he was still just a child. “And when I asked, he wouldn’t tell me _why_ Grandpa tried to kill him, so it was probably a good reason.”

Belle blinked at him, momentarily dumbfounded. No one had ever accused Henry of being unobservant. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Rumple had said he wanted to explain…but even now, she didn’t know the reasons behind his actions. She had assumed the worst.

Unaware of the tangent her thoughts had taken, Henry continued, a hint of hope creeping into his tone when she did not automatically shut him down. “So, I thought, maybe I’d be able to get him to listen? I might be the only one who can; he wanted to save me during the snow queen’s spell, and I didn’t force him out of town.”

Belle flinched.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean - .”

“I know, Henry. It’s alright.” He’d only been stating the facts.

“My moms and grandparents say it’s too dangerous, but even when I didn’t know he was my grandpa and everyone thought he was really scary, he never actually-.”

Belle hated to interrupt, but she could tell he was going to try wearing her down with his (admittedly well thought out) arguments and there simply was not enough time for that. Rumple only had until sunrise. “Henry, do you know what happened to Rumple?”

Henry shook his head. “They wouldn’t tell me. Just that the wicked witch is still alive and she’s been hurting him. They were pretty upset, but Grandma said there was nothing they could do to help. They sent me to bed when I said we should try to find and talk to him.” His face set in a stubborn scowl that was so familiar it _hurt_. He definitely got that from Rumple’s side of the family. “But that’s not _right._ ”

Belle swallowed, realizing that no, Henry did _not_ know what was going on. They hadn’t told him Rumple was dying. They hadn’t told him his _grandfather_ was out there somewhere all alone and Charming had destroyed the only potion that would save his life. When were they going to tell him? When they found Rumple’s body? At the funeral? Or were they just assuming he would vanish completely and they could ignore he’d ever existed?

“Belle? What’s wrong?”

She couldn’t quite smile, and at his increasingly concerned expression, at those brown eyes that were so, so familiar, she nearly broke down sobbing again.

“Belle? What-what happened?” For the first time, uncertainty crept into his tone. He obviously hadn’t realized the magnitude of what had been kept from him.

“Rumple…” She tried to think of a gentle way to break the news, but all she could think was ‘ _Rumple’s dying and I can’t find a way to help him!’_ “Henry, Rumple’s…in trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s under a curse.” Her voice broke on the word and she cleared her throat painfully. “Zelena had a cure, she was forcing him work for her to get it, but it was broken during the fight in the woods.”

The savior’s son just looked at her for a moment, taking in the way she curled in on herself and the remains of her research scattered around the pawnshop in panicked disarray. The pieces were quickly coming together.

“What sort of curse?” He asked quietly.

“It’s called the curse of the broken hearted.” Belle took in a deep breath but couldn’t continue.

“But…it’s a curse, right? And you’re his True Love. True Love’s kiss can break any curse!”

She gave a choking, tearful chuckle. “I hope so, Henry. But…it isn’t that simple.”

“Why not? You love him, right?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes, trying to keep the tears back. She’s spent the entire period of Rumple’s absence trying to tell herself there was nothing left between them, that she should move on, but now that she knew the truth, she couldn’t hide from her feelings any longer. Rumple’s life depended on it. “Yes, I do love him. But I don’t know where he is.”

“Mom’s good at finding people. Maybe-.”

Belle shook her head. “I’ve already checked the town. He must be out in the woods somewhere.”

“It might be easier in the daytime-?”

“He doesn’t have that long.”

Henry blanched and then frowned deeply. “What about magic?”

“Locator spells aren’t working.”

Henry’s frown deepened and then abruptly lightened into an expression of realization. Belle stopped talking and watched his ‘lightbulb moment’ with painful hope. The boy was young, but he had inherited his grandfather’s mental acuity – with Rumple gone, Henry was the next best thing.

Without saying anything, Henry turned and bolted into the back room, followed by Belle at a run. He instantly started riffling through the shelves, leaving disarray in his wake but obviously looking for something. Belle watched in confusion.

“Henry, what-?”

“When I first started working here, I asked Grandpa how he found my dad when the curse ended. I knew he needed Emma’s help, but he had something else too that he used to figure out where exactly dad was living.”

Belle’s eyes widened. “The globe…”

“Yeah! He used a magical globe that can pinpoint the location of anyone on the planet. All he needed was a drop of blood from a direct relative and – here it is!”

Henry had impatiently slammed open a cabinet and his eyes lit up when he saw the small globe resting on the top shelf. Carefully, he pulled it down.

“It’ll work, right? If you use my blood?” He was looking at Belle with such hope and trust that she couldn’t say no. And she didn’t want to – this wasn’t a small-scale spell, this was a powerful magical artifact which meant that Rumple’s wards wouldn’t work against it. _It could really work!_

Hope sang in her heart.

* * *

 Four hours later, that hope was waning.

They’d both been jubilant when the globe seemed to work (so jubilant that Belle forgot to send the teenager home). A drop of Henry’s blood illuminated a glowing speck in Storybrooke that had to be Rumple. Unfortunately, there were no topographical features on the map and they didn’t have the magical know-how to figure out the exact coordinates from a globe on such a small scale, so they were reduced to playing ‘hot and cold’. Or rather, ‘glowing or dim’. The closer they got to Rumple, the brighter the dot on the globe glowed. If they took a wrong turn, it dimmed. This was fine while they were able to drive, but there weren’t many roads in the back woods of rural Maine and the Cadillac was not suited for off road driving. When they ran out of road less than a quarter of the way to the location on the globe, they were forced to hike the rest of the way. It was a long, slow slog through the dark woods with nothing but each other, their flashlights, and the magical globe to keep them from getting turned around.

Now it was 5am and they had less than an hour left before sunrise.

Henry was yawning widely at her side and she was regretting her decision to bring him along – not only was he a teenager in need of sleep who was having trouble keeping his eyes open, but his parents had no idea where he was. And as much as she knew he wanted to help find Rumple, she was worried about what he’d do if (when. It had to be _when_ ) they found him and what Rumple’s reaction might be. She was still running on too much adrenaline to feel sleepy; every time her body started to slow down and remind her how long it had been since she’d rested, she would remember the way her husband’s heart had beat erratically under her hand and his painful gasps as he told he loved her and said goodbye.

She wouldn’t be sleeping until he was home and safe in her arms.

As they continued to trudge through the woods, making their way slowly closer to the boundary line and the beach, Belle tried to remain hopeful and keep her mind in the present, but memories kept intruding. Some were of Rumple, both good and bad, in the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke, but some stretched even further back. Cruella’s cruel explanation that Rumple had ‘crawled away to die’ hit a chord in Belle’s memory.

When she was a child, Belle had never been allowed to keep pets in the castle (it wasn’t ‘proper’ or ‘ladylike’) but she’d often snuck out to play with the barn cats and hunting dogs– she made fast friends, helped along by numerous pockets full of kitchen scraps and she came to know all of them by name. (If they didn’t have a name, she made one up.)

One of the barn cats – an old brindled tortoiseshell she named Pebbles - got in a fight with a fox one day. Belle saw them tearing into each other and screamed, running to help her friend – but the noise scared both animals away. She knew Pebbles had been hurt – the fox had shaken him by the neck and there was blood where they’d been fighting – so she searched desperately, frantic to help him.

She never found him.

She yelled his name until she was hoarse and distraught and her father had to carry her home. Her nanny told her Pebbles was probably just scared and would come back when he was ready and Belle believed her. She waited all week for any sign of him. Finally, her nanny told her a nice family must have taken him in and nursed him back to health, adopting him into their home.

It wasn’t until she was much older that she realized Pebbles probably hadn’t made it.

In the lonely dark Maine woods, with a rosy tint beginning to show on the horizon, Belle felt eight years old again, helpless to save someone she loved. Helpless to even find him when he needed her the most. But she wouldn’t stop looking, not even if the sun came up completely and she had to search through the day. Not even if everyone else said he was beyond her help. She would NOT give up on him.

“Belle! I found something!”

Her head snapped up, hope seizing her heart in a painful grip and rushed over to Henry. He was standing on the exposed root structure of a massive oak tree that was hanging off the edge of the coastal cliff that ran from north to south past Storybrooke, staring down the steep slope to the beach. There was no trail down and the incline was rocky and dangerous looking in the moonlight. Every jagged edge and dark hollow was thrown into sharp contrast, mellowed only slightly by the shine of their flashlights.

She looked to Henry expectantly and he pointed along the incline to a big patch of particularly deep shadow hidden amongst the rocks and half blocked by the foliage of a tree much like the one they were standing on. It didn’t look like much; no more than a slight dip in the rock to her inexperienced eye, but Henry was looking at her expectantly so she pulled the globe out of her satchel and held it forward.

The dot was absolutely _radiant._

It took them a good ten minutes to get over to the stone depression and the dot on the globe increased in brightness with every step. Belle chafed at the delay - there were only _thirty minutes_ left until sunrise! – but knew that falling down the rocky slope because she wasn’t careful would hurt their progress far more than an extra thirty seconds of finding footholds.

Her heart pounded with nerves and hope the closer they got, but it was accompanied by growing confusion.

There was _nothing there._ The depression in the rock was just that; a small depression. She could see the back of the cliff not six inches in. But this was definitely where the globe was leading.

“Well?” Henry was bouncing on his heels impatiently at her side. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go save him!”

“What? But…” Belle looked back and forth between him and the rock in bemusement. “There’s nothing there.”

This time it was Henry’s turn to be confused. “What? Yes there is! There’s a cave!”

“I don’t see a cave.” She reached out and ran a hand over the stone in the depression. It was hard, cold, rough, and undeniably solid.

Henry frowned and reached out to place his hand next to hers… and _kept going_. He fell straight through the solid stone and vanished.

“Henry!” She yelped in sudden fear.

He popped out of the wall a second later, looking confused. “See? There’s a cave!”

Belle’s eyes widened. Magic. _Rumple’s_ magic. A blood spell. They were close. He was _here_ , in the cave right in front of her. But she _couldn’t enter._

“A blood spell.” She whispered. Then, louder: “Henry, I think that’s a blood spell. It’s one of Rumple’s favorite security wards – it keeps out everyone who is not directly related to him.” She gulped. “I can’t get through. Can you- can you find him? Get him to let me in? Or get him to come out?”

“On it!” The teenager vanished into the wall and Belle settled in to wait, alternately looking between the globe in her hands and the slowly lightening sky to the east.

* * *

Henry felt his way carefully through the rough cave-like tunnel. It wasn’t very big – maybe three feet wide and five and a half feet tall so his head brushed the ceiling in places. It was also pretty dark…but not as dark as it should have been. There was an odd faint glow coming from up ahead that washed the walls in glints of silver and gold. Henry found the source when he reached the end of the tunnel and came upon a small circular cave, not much taller than the tunnel but as wide as a small room. It took him a moment to realize the lumpy, ribbed walls were actually the roots of one of the giant trees above that had been pushed into position by magic, leaving what looked legitimately like a cave. The light didn’t seem to have any specific source; it was just a faint, steady glow that emanated around the middle of the room, throwing the rest of it into stark shadow.

He simply stared in awe for a moment until he heard a low groan at the back of the cave, in the deepest shadows. Snapped back to task, he rushed forward. Something crackled under his feet, but he didn’t notice.

“Mr. Gold? Er…Grandpa?”

“Henry?” His grandfather’s voice was weak and wracked with pain. Henry’s flashlight found him lying at the very back of the cave against the wall on top of a pile of straw, using one of the tree roots for support. Suddenly, Henry understood why Belle had been worried all night – the sorcerer looked _bad_. His skin was grey and his face bloodless while his eyes were half open and darting restlessly. Every twenty seconds or so, his entire body seized up and his expression tightened with pain, hands curled over his chest digging thin fingers into the shirt over his heart. Other than the spasms, he was entirely limp and still – Henry didn’t think he _could_ get up, even if he wanted.

“Hey.” He shuffled forward, suddenly nervous, and hovered uncertainly.

“What are you doing here, dearie?” He didn’t sound angry or scary now…he sounded old. And sad. “This isn’t -.” His voice hitched in time with another spasm and he waited until it had passed to continue. “This isn’t something you should see.”

Henry swallowed. He had to remind himself that Rumpelstiltskin would be fine; that was the whole reason they had come to find him. He looked bad, sure, but it was _temporary_. He wouldn’t actually _die._ “We came to help you.”

“We?”

“Belle’s here too.” Hesitantly, he knelt next to the prostrate pawnbroker. “She couldn’t get past your magic. I came in first to get you to let her in.”

Gold sighed brokenly. “I already-.” _Spasm._ “-talked to Belle. She’ll be happy with the thief.”

“Who?” Henry shook his head. “She wants _you._ She’s waiting outside right now; she came all this way to save you!”

“I can’t be saved.”

The truest believer set his jaw and shook his head, trying not to notice just how far gone his grandfather already was…or to realize just how close to dawn they were getting. “She’s your _True Love._ She’s not going to give up! And neither am I!”

“Henry…”

“Grandpa, please.” For the first time, the moniker sounded natural coming from Henry’s lips. “Let her in. She doesn’t want to be out there, she wants to be in _here_. With _you_. And I know you want her here – she’s your _True Love._ She can _save_ you!”

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t answer, but he seemed not to have the energy to protest. After his next spasm passed, he waved one hand in a weak spiral and there was the sudden sound of running footsteps coming down the stone corridor as the magical shield on the entrance fell.

“Rumple?!” Belle called out as she stumbled into the cave, barely managing to hang onto the globe and her flashlight in her haste.

“Belle?”

She took in the situation at a glance and instantly dropped both items, rushing to his side and falling to her knees.

“Oh, _Rumple._ ”

“Belle…? But…I thought…”

“You silly man.” There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling as she traced the features of his face. He’d dropped all masks and the expression on his face was heart-wrenching and vulnerable. “You never gave me the chance to say I love you too.”

“But…I…”

“I know everything. I spoke to Emma and the villains. Why didn’t you just _talk_ to me? If you’d told me what was going on, we could have found a different way to separate you from the dagger. _Together_.”

Now, tears were pooling in his eyes as well, and he closed them as they escaped. Before he could respond, his heart spasmed again and his face twisted in agony. Gently, Belle slipped an arm under his neck and put a hand on his chest, helping to hold him steady as he rode it out. She didn’t notice Henry kneeling next to her, trying to help her stabilize him.

Belle took a deep breath. She’d been contemplating this moment all night; what she would do when they found him, if this would work, how to make sure it worked…

And she’d come to the conclusion that it depended on her husband. He’d been too frightened to allow it to work the last time she’d tried, but she had to believe he trusted her enough to let it work this time. It _had_ to work.

“Rumple, do you trust me?” She stroked his brow and he half-opened one hazy eye.

“Of course.”

No hesitation, not even after what she’d done with the Dagger and how they’d been dancing around each other since his return. She gave him a watery smile.

“Guys…” Henry butted in. “I don’t want to rush you, but sunrise is in less than five minutes…”

“Right.” Belle nodded and leaned down until her face was right over Rumple’s and she hovered there, hesitating and looking down at him for permission. She’d hurt him the last time she’d tried without his consent; she wouldn’t do that again, not even under these conditions. Not after he’d placed his trust in her.

She saw it when his pain-fogged mind made the connection and a spark lit in his eyes. He blinked in fearful awe, disbelief, and finally hope. He licked his lips and inclined his head in assent.

Belle closed the distance and pressed her lips to his, pouring all of her love, hope, and desperation into the simple touch, hoping and praying it would be enough. She had faith in the strength of their love, their _True Love_ , and in the face of that, all of their doubts and hurts seemed to melt away.

His lips were dry and limp at first, but he started responding after a few seconds and swiftly managed to match her passion with his own love, devotion, hope, and most of all belief in the strength of their love. She felt him hesitate for a split second after the first kiss while he breathed raggedly against her lips, an odd warm electricity in the air between them, like magic but somehow more intense, and then he lunged forward and kissed her again, determination in every line of his body.

She felt it when he let his shields down and dove into the kiss without any reservations, surrendering to the force of their True Love; warmth surrounded them, radiating from their point of contact, and soft white light lit the small cave.

They broke apart panting – when had she closed her eyes? – and she looked down at him. His face was flushed and healthy and his eyes were wide. His hands were wrapped around her arms rather than clawing a his chest, and he was taking deep healthy breaths.

He smiled, small and hopeful.

“It’s working.” She smiled in pure and utter relief.

“I think so.” He looked up at her through his hair, trying to push into a better sitting position. “Kiss me again?”

She laughed out loud, a sound both joyful and broken, and threw her arms around his neck, feeling his arms come up to circle her waist. This time they hit the floor together, kissing without abandon and clinging to each other as if they’d never let go.

In the background, Henry flushed bright red in embarrassment (though his relieved grin never faded), and ducked out of the cave. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the view from the cave’s entrance was amazing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite fluff, but at least it's a happy ending, right?
> 
> I'm trying not to let the show kill my inspiration. It's proving to be an uphill battle.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This installment takes place post-'Lily' but pre-'Mother'

_**4\. The heroes get their hands on an unconscious Rumpelstiltskin and Belle comes to visit him in his prison cell (set post-Lily, pre-Mother)** _

With consciousness came pain and noise.

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t move and, for the moment, he ignored the voices yelling in the background; he merely breathed as deeply as he could – which wasn’t much. The pain was centered in his heart and he knew he was very close to being out of time. He’d clung to that little shred of love as long as possible, but it was finally wavering like the final petal falling from a dying rose. And when his heart blackened completely, when the human Rumpelstiltskin died and the demonic Dark One took over, he truly feared for the fate of the town.

Or, well, the parts he liked, at least. Belle, Henry, his shop, his home…

He breathed out painfully through his nose and clutched the flickering little pulse as tightly as possible. Then he allowed his surroundings to trickle in.

He was lying on a small, bare cot in a drafty space that echoed and felt oddly familiar. It was cold - he must have been divested of his jacket at some point – and despite the draft, there was the unmistakable feeling of walls closing in around him – the irrepressible itch of being caged started to gnaw at the back of his mind and he purposely forced it away. He was not in the cellar and Zelena did not have his dagger; he didn’t know what was happening but it wasn’t that.

Desperate for another focus, he cast his attention beyond his immediate surroundings and tuned into the yelling voices – all of which were familiar. There were at least half a dozen people nearby, and he knew without needing magic that they were the ‘heroes’. Regina was barking irately about something Emma had done, Snow White was trying to mollify her, Hook was grumbling about ‘Crocodile’ this and ‘Emma’ that, Charming and Emma were muttering quietly to each other, Robin was trying to talk to-

Wait, Robin?

Rumple furrowed his brow in confusion and concern, but still did not open his eyes.

He’d assumed he’d blacked out again (an occurrence that was becoming depressingly common as his heart got worse) and the heroes found him while he was helpless, stashing him in a jail cell for some foolish reason. (They couldn’t really think it would hold him, could they?) However, if _Robin_ was here, that meant _Zelena_ was here, which meant they were all in very real danger.

Actually, he vaguely remembered seeing Zelena…or at least hearing that horrible laugh of hers.

Maybe he’d had a panic attack and hyperventilated until he fell unconscious?

Gods, he hoped he hadn’t had another heart attack. Especially in a jail cell.

Either way, if Zelena had been present, the heroes were lucky he hadn’t flattened half the town in reflexive panic.

Suddenly, familiar running footsteps intruded on the conversation (which he was purposely ignoring. It was the same pedantic drivel they always engaged in.) But at the identity of the newcomer, he nearly gave away his conscious status.

“Where is he? What happened?”

“Easy, Belle.” It was Emma, sounding a bit worse for wear. “He’s alright. We figure it was probably a panic attack.”

The footsteps clicked rapidly across the room, coming to a halt in front of his cage…cell. It was a cell. He had to remember that, or he’d start having flashbacks. He did not open his eyes.

“What happened?” Rumple felt his heart lurch with hope at the obvious concern in her tone. After everything he’d put her through, there was no way she could still have feelings for him. She was a kind hearted person…it was probably just the concern she’d show anyone in his condition.

Emma sighed noisily. “Zelena summoned him and-.”

“ ** _Zelena_**?!”

“…Right. You weren’t actually there for that part.” He heard Emma shift in obvious discomfort. “Turns out, Zelena’s alive. She was pretending to be Marian and living in New York with Robin. She wasn’t…well, I don’t know exactly what she did to Gold in New York, but she forced him to work for her and-.”

“She killed his son and he was just going to lay back and-.” Regina’s sneering voice cut in.

“You do not get to talk about Bae.” Belle interrupted, tone pure iron. Obviously, she had not forgiven the theft of her heart. “Not after what you’ve done. YOU are the one who wanted Zelena kept alive and allowed free. If her survival and her current actions are anyone’s fault, it’s _yours_.”

“He’s working with-.”

“Emma said she FORCED him to work with her.” A rustle of fabric as his wife turned towards the savior, ignoring Regina’s irritated grumbles. “What did she do in New York?”

“I don’t know. She just said that he had a couple of heart attacks, and she has the only medicine that will heal his heart.”

Belle’s breath caught in her throat. Rumple itched to comfort her, but was loath to reveal his awakened state.

Emma continued, sounding more uncomfortable with every word. “When Regina figured out Zelena was with Robin, we went to save him and wound up bringing her back as a prisoner. She summoned Gold once we crossed the town line, but the second he saw her he freaked. For a minute, I thought he was going to flatten the entire forest. But after the initial explosion, he…I guess he passed out? He sort of collapsed to his knees making these wheezing sounds and his eyes wouldn’t focus. By the time I got to him, he was down.”

“Where is she now?” Belle sounded remarkably collected for someone in her position, but Rumple could hear the faint tremor in her voice. She was minutes from breaking down.

“We put her in the asylum. I guess that’s one good thing about Gold’s tantrum – Zelena took the brunt of it and went down _hard_. As far as I know, she’s still out.”

Belle let out a measured breath, but did not comment. “You said she had medicine that would heal his heart…?”

“Yeah…we were just talking about that, actually.” Emma sounded tired and resigned. There was the slight creak of leather as she leaned back in her chair, apparently finished with her explanation. At the door to his cell, Belle stiffened.

“Talking about _what_?”

No answer. You could have heard a pin drop. Rumple opened one eye to a narrow slit so he could observe the scene through his eyelashes. All six of the heroes were staring at Belle with expressions that ranged from uncomfortable to guilty to outright defiant.

“ _Where_ is the medicine?” Her tone was harsh and disbelieving. “Why haven’t you given it to him?”

“Why should we?” Regina snapped. “You know what he planned to do!”

“You can’t be serious-!”

“He’s a monster!”

“Last time I checked, he’s not the one ripping people’s hearts out!”

“Whoa, what?” Emma stepped in. “Regina, what’s she talking about?”

“That doesn’t matter-.” The (supposedly) formerly evil queen sounded highly uncomfortable. “Gold is a-“

“It _doesn’t matter_?!” Belle snapped.

“Everyone needs to just calm down, so we can talk about this rationally…” For the first time, Snow White stepped into the conversation, inserting herself between Belle and Regina where they were slowly advancing on each other. Notably, she was closer to Regina and her regal warning gaze was fixed on Belle.

For a moment, the silence sang with tension, until an unlikely person broke it.

“We should give it to him.” Robin announced quietly from his spot near the doorway. He’d been standing there the whole time, arms folded tightly against his chest.

“Robin…!” Regina yelped in protest.

He shook his head. “It’s the honorable thing to do. Besides, in the end…he was trying to tell me, I think. He wasn’t talking about Marian…he was talking about you.” The eyes he turned on Regina were soft but determined. “And I owe him. I promised him I would bring him the elixir…and I failed.”

“Robin…”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Rumpelstiltskin over the years, it’s that what he does is more important than what he says. And what he did in New York…” Robin firmed his expression. “We need to give him the medicine.”

Regina swallowed and then sighed. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“…Well then, what are we waiting for?”

“I can’t let you do that, mate.” As one, everyone turned towards Killian…and Rumple’s eyes sharpened at the sight of the small bottle of potion with a heart shaped stopper hanging from the tip of his hook.

“Killian, what…?” Emma reached towards him, but he shook his head and stepped backwards, swinging the potion in an arc.

“Emma, love…the crocodile is _evil_. No matter how many chances you give him, how much love and understanding you show him, he’ll just hurt you. He’s a _monster_. I’ve always known it.” He raised the potion to the light to stare at it and then nodded firmly. “This is the right thing to do.”

“Killian, don’t-!”

Emma was too slow. In a single sharp movement, the pirate lashed out, aiming to slam the fragile vial against the wall and smash it to pieces.

It never made it that far.

Before his arm even descended, the bottle of potion vanished in a swirl of red smoke. Everyone stared at the empty place it had been occupying for a moment, completely dumbfounded.

“I’ll take that, dearie.” Rumple’s voice was hoarse, but fully lucid. As one, the heroes jumped and turned towards him. The Dark One was propped up on one elbow on the cot in the cell farthest from the door, one hand extended towards them …and now holding the vial of potion.

In one swift move, before any of them could talk or intervene, he yanked out the stopper and knocked back the entire dose.

It felt good at first; cool and refreshing against the parched roughness of his throat, but as soon as it hit his chest, he felt the magic take hold and reach beyond his stomach to touch his heart. The curse stifling his soul fought the new spell, but it eroded right through the blackened shell like acid, reaching for the faint flickering of his true heart buried deep inside.

It acted like acid...and it felt like it too.

Almost instantly, he collapsed off the cot to the floor gagging and hacking, blood streaming from his mouth and nose. He fought to gain control, not wanting to appear vulnerable in front of the heroes, but it was difficult. Even when he managed to stifle the coughing, he could not seem to uncurl from his painful huddle on the floor with his eyes tightly closed, jerking every few seconds from internal pain.

“ _Rumple_!” Distantly, he heard Belle scream. “Emma, let me in there!”

“Belle…”

“Now!”

The rattling of keys and clang of the door did not register, but the soothing touch of his True Love’s hand on his tense muscles immediately drew him back to the present. She turned him gently onto his side and pillowed his head in her lap and he let her move him without protest – he couldn’t drum up the energy to move himself closer or away. He couldn’t even drum up the energy to open his eyes or wipe the blood off his face.

“Rumple? Hey…” A gentle hand carded through his hair and he sighed, relaxing into the touch he never thought he’d feel again.

“Belle?” Was that his voice? He sounded like he’d been gargling razorblades…

“I’m here.” She sniffed. Her voice was trembling and he felt a spike of remorse at putting her through those emotions yet again.

He sighed. “You’re supposed to be with Will…You’re supposed to be _happy_ …”

Her hand stilled, though it did not move from his head. “Rumple…you…” her voice broke and then she sniffed again, sounding more conflicted than sad. “You’re my True Love. Will’s nice, but he’s not you. Besides, he has his own True Love to fight for.”

He wished his heart didn’t lurch with hope at those words. He didn’t deserve her – all he ever did was bring her pain. But all of his clever words deserted him. All he could come up with was: “But…I hurt you.”

“I hurt you too.” Belle’s hand was trembling as it traced his features, wiping blood away, and he half-opened a woozy eye to watch her agile fingers wander his face. He was unable to stop himself from leaning into her touch.

“I’m sorry.” The pure depth of his emotions was packed into those two words and while he knew it wasn’t nearly enough, she seemed to understand.

“Me too.” She sniffed and he felt her kiss him lightly on the forehead. He tried to move into it, but all he managed was an aborted jerk of an arm.

“Rumple,” there was a note of urgency in her voice – not quite panic yet, but getting close – and a hand brushed past his bangs, trying to encourage him to open his eyes. He did so after a moment, looking up into her face and smiling crookedly.

…In retrospect, considering how much blood was on his face, that was probably a bad idea. Her expression immediately creased in concern.

“Belle…are you crying?” He frowned in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Am _I_ okay?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I’m fine. Are _you_ okay? Did the elixir work?”

“Yeah.” He grimaced, attention drawn back to the acidic pain eating away at his chest cavity, but the expression quickly transformed into a strained smile. “It’s working.”

“I thought it was supposed to _help_ , not nearly kill you!”

“It’s burning through the shell around my heart.” He explained, too tired and in pain to dress up the words. “It can’t do anything about my curse, but it’s saving whatever’s left beneath it.”

“Did you know this would happen?”

“No, but I knew it was within the realms of possibility.” He flexed a hand, trying to move, and found that his control was returning as the effects of the elixir faded from full body agony to the worst case of heartburn in existence – painful, but manageable. Reluctantly, he attempted to pull out of Belle’s lap so he could stand, but she didn’t let him go. The hand in his hair held tight, keeping him in place until he opened both eyes in confusion and looked up at her.

“Belle…?”

There were tear tracks staining her face, he realized with concern. His hand rose of its own accord to hover over her cheek, but wavered uncertainly before touching her. With her free hand, she took it and pulled it to her face, leaning into his touch. He could feel the liquid of her tears under his palm.

“I thought you were dying.”

“Oh, no, sweetheart. The elixir has a lot of damage to repair – it was never going to be easy.” He brushed a thumb over her cheekbone, wiping away the tears. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” She sniffled. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is. All of it is.” His sigh was defeated and this time when he tried to pull away, she let him go. He sat up, one hand braced against his chest and the other against the floor, then turned to look at her. He drank in the sight of her, of the love and concern in her eyes that he never thought would be directed at him again, basking in it even as he mentally kicked himself for putting her through such emotional pain yet again.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, it really IS.” Both of them jumped at the new voice, and their heads swiveled to face Regina where she was standing right outside the closed and locked cell door. Rumple immediately felt his good will evaporating and his soft expression transforming into an aggressive sneer, matched by Belle’s stiffening posture. They’d been too wrapped up in each other to recall that they were essentially on display in the sheriff’s station. Most of the heroes had retreated, likely out of a desire to give them privacy, but Regina and Robin remained. Robin looked highly uncomfortable; he still hadn’t moved from his spot by the door and he wouldn’t meet the eyes of the man and woman in the cell.

“I wasn’t talking to _you_ , dearie.” Rumple snapped, laboriously pushing himself to his feet. It hurt, but he was already pulling together his personal armor, trying to hide his weakness and put up a powerful front that the heroes would believe. Unfortunately, a spasm of pain caught him on the way up and he nearly collapsed back down – would have, if Belle hadn’t caught him and guided him up, supporting him with an arm around his waist and letting him stabilize himself with a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ve got a _lot_ of questions to answer, Gold.” Regina snapped.

Rumple was supremely unimpressed. “I believe you mean that you have questions. Questions I am not obligated to answer, especially after you _stole Belle’s heart_.”

He took a threatening step towards the cage door and Regina instinctively leaned away from his hostile expression before catching herself. Before she could make a comeback, Robin spoke up quietly from the other side of the room.

“Regina? What is he talking about?”

She shot the Dark One a venomous accusing look, but he just snorted.

“Oh no, dearie. You can’t blame that one on me. It was your fault all the way through.” His eyes darkened. “And you _will_ regret it.”

“Rumple.” Belle prodded him lightly in the side and he reluctantly downgraded his expression from ‘murderous’ to ‘condescending’. But Belle wasn’t telling him to apologize and she wasn’t nearly as upset as he’d expected – a fact Regina obviously noticed as well because she swallowed, sneered, and turned on her heel to walk away. She might have been wearing a façade of power, but Rumple knew she was actually running away. Robin followed her out, still not quite looking at the two of them, though Rumple didn’t know if it was out of guilt, anger, or embarrassment.

He didn’t really care.

“She was going to let you die.” Belle’s voice was quiet and hard and his head jerked around in surprise. It was uncharacteristic and he took her hand, squeezing it in concern. His wife shot him a strained smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “She stole my heart, she was going to stand there and watch you die while she had the elixir that could save you, and the other heroes weren’t going to stop her. They didn’t even _protest_.”

“Sweetheart…”

“You were right about them.” The disillusionment in her tone broke his heart and he found himself compelled to restore her faith; not for the heroes, but for Belle. She was such a good person; she deserved to have something she could believe in. Even if it was the hypocrisy of Storybrooke’s ruling family.

“They don’t trust me, dearest. Had it been anyone else, I’m sure they would have leapt to help. They pride themselves on their heroism, after all.” His weak joke fell flat as she turned a glare on him. He shrunk back, but she didn’t let go and he realized it wasn’t directed at him.

“That doesn’t make it right! They even treated Zelena better than that! _Zelena_!”

He could only shrug helplessly. He’d long since given up hope of being viewed as another other than an inhuman monster by the Charmings and their friends. That message had been driven home during his incarceration by Zelena when the so called ‘heroes’ left him to rot in a cage for a year at a madwoman’s mercy. Only Belle and Bae had even attempted to rescue him. And when he’d been freed – as an _afterthought_ , not a goal – the first thing they did was take up the Dagger and bind him to their orders. The only reason he’d been freed at all was because they’d decided to trust Belle to hold his leash, and she hadn’t thought twice about returning his autonomy. He had neither forgotten nor forgiven the heroes’ willingness to see him enslaved.

“…And you’re not surprised.” She tried to pull away, to curl in on herself, but Rumple kept his grip on her hand, watching her with concern.

Rumple sighed. “Belle, you’re worth ten of them.” She looked up at him, blue eyes wide and teary but grateful. He smiled and continued. “They play at being heroes and pretend at purity, but you, sweetheart, are the real deal. You would sacrifice yourself and your happiness to a monster to save your people, and forgive those who have tried to kill you multiple times because you see the best in even the darkest souls. You even see it in me.” His chuckle was wry and self-effacing.

“Don’t say that, Rumple. You might not be a hero, but you’re not evil.”

He sighed. “You’re too good for me, Belle.”

“You’re a better person than you think you are, Rumple.” She watched his uncomfortable shifting with affection, and then squeezed his hand. “Are you ready to leave?”

Rumple’s eyebrow kicked up. “You’re not going to try to convince me to stay where they put me? Play nice with the heroes?”

She grimaced. He wasn’t the only one with a history with cages. “Not this time. Besides, they know where to find us if they want to talk to you. Right?”

He blinked at the almost desperate hope in the final word, and then realized she wasn’t sure he’d want to go with her once they were out. She thought he’d prefer to return to the woods with Isaac than go home or to the shop. But the whole point of this endeavor had been the elixir and Belle, and now he had both. He couldn’t care less about the Author. Granted, it would take a lot of work on both their parts to get through this, but together they could do it.

He smiled. “Right.”

Hand in hand, they disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The heroes are just making me progressively more irritated with every episode. I really, really hope their hypocrisy and double-standards will be addressed before the end of the season. )
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback last chapter! I'm glad so many people liked the two-parter!


	6. Chapter 6

_**5\. Rumple gets a little ‘help’ when speaking to Belle at the well. Almost pure fluff and kittens (...literally).** _

After a long and difficult journey, Rumpelstiltskin was finally back in Storybrooke… and he was _miserable_. Yes, he had his magic back and he was no longer in danger of dying of heart failure every minute of every day, but Belle was seeing someone else. He’d come back with every intention of talking to her honestly, of explaining why he needed the hat and what was going on with his heart and soul. She might still hate him after he explained – she would _probably_ hate him – but at least she would have all of the facts. He’d expected…well, _some_ sort of response. They were _married_ after all – they were True Love!

Instead, he found her in the arms of another man.

It _hurt_ , deep in his black heart, but he knew he deserved the pain. Even as the increasingly louder voice of his curse murmured about _betrayal_ and _revenge_ , his unshakable belief that the pain was justified kept him from taking action against her. Instead, he found himself rooming with two fickle sorceresses in a small cabin in the woods. Ursula wasn’t so bad – he’d gotten used to her quirks in the world without magic, though he was glad she hadn’t been able to bring any of her fish with her to Storybrooke - but _Cruella…_

Ugh _._

At least there was only so much alcohol in Storybrooke. And most of it was _not_ at his cabin.

Still, he was a recluse at heart and their presence grated on his nerves when they decided to bring their partying and reminiscing home with them and he found himself taking long walks through the woods to calm his fevered and desperate mind. (Sometimes he wondered how they would react if they knew what terrible condition he was in, but he quickly dismissed the thought. They wouldn’t care unless he hit the tipping point. Then the unleashed Dark One would probably kill them.) The simple act of walking without a cane and without the familiar pain of his crippled leg hounding every step was soothing, as was the silence and isolation which stood in stark contrast to his life in the outside world. It wasn’t as good as spinning, but there was no way he was going to break into his - into _Belle’s -_ house just to get his wheel. Not like it would do much good at this point, anyway. The best he could hope for was maybe a few extra days if he stayed calm and happy enough to slow the darkness consuming his heart, and he was positive that any sense of calm was fundamentally impossible in his current situation.

It was during one of his night time wanderings that he found himself meandering towards the road without a set goal in mind, unworried about being interrupted, when something squeaked in the undergrowth.

He didn’t stop. It was probably just nature taking its course.

Another squeak.

He paused. The creature sounded distressed.

Then a low, crying wail, more whine than squeak, arrested his progress completely.

The Dark One let out a grumbling sigh, but turned back and swept the concealing bush aside with a wave of his hand and magic. Abruptly, the noise stopped.

He found himself looking into the wide, frightened eyes of a very small, very scared kitten. It was skinny, dirty, and covered in so much dirt and leaves that he couldn’t even make out the color of its fur. One tiny paw was trapped in the crevasse between a tree root and a mostly-buried rock and there was blood matting the fur around the ankle where it was stuck. There was no sign of a mother cat or any siblings. Rumpelstiltskin stared at it for a moment, torn. He was the Dark One. He didn’t _do_ charity and he certainly didn’t feel sympathy for tiny fluffy animals in distress. But he was also Rumpelstiltskin and he actually _liked_ animals, in a way he’d never really connected to humans. They had simple emotions and no concept of prejudice or judgment. They also seemed to instinctively like him (had since he was a child), though he would never understand why.

The kitten looked up at him, blinked big blue eyes and let out a quiet, miserable: “Mew?”

What was left of his heart melted. The kitten’s big blue eyes reminded him of Belle when she was disappointed in his decisions. He could almost hear her voice.

_You wouldn’t leave an innocent kitten out here all alone, would you Rumple?_

No, he wouldn’t.

His shoulders slumped and he let out a defeated sigh. Honestly, there had never been a question about his course of action.

With a wave of his hand, the rock shifted and the kitten was free. It stumbled out of the brush, shocked at the sudden release, and looked at him with wide eyes, obviously not comprehending. But when it tried to flee, it let out a pitiful squeak and stumbled. Fresh blood oozed from under the matted fur on its injured paw.

Rumple glanced in both directions and did a magical sweep of the nearby landscape to make sure no one would see him, then crouched down and met the tiny animal’s gaze. It probably wouldn’t even want his help, but he stretched out an empty hand, palm up, as harmlessly as he knew how. (His expression was one that only children, pets, and Belle had seen in a very, very long time.)

“Hello, dearie.” He murmured gently, not moving.

It blinked at him, tail twitching in agitation, then leaned forward and delicately sniffed the tips of his fingers. He waited until it shyly brushed its cheek against one finger before gently scratching its chin and picking it up. It was so small and malnourished that it easily fit in one hand.

It stiffened and hissed when he reached for the injured leg, but a brush of his finger numbed the pain and a discrete twitch of his hand healed the wound entirely.

The kitten mewed again in surprise and he let out a rusty chuckle and put it down. Its first few steps were cautious, expecting pain, but in mere minutes, the small animal was scampering about in kittenish joy.

He watched it testing out the newly healed leg for a moment, the sight of such innocence soothing something in his soul that he hadn’t realized was tense, and then he turned to walk away, expecting the kitten to go back where it came from – to its owner or its mother.

He was barely four steps away when a slight weight rammed head first into his good ankle, and he stared down in surprise to find the little beast attached to him, all four legs spread wide with claws sunk deep into the leg of his pants and mouth vigorously ‘killing’ the fabric.

“You’re a bit small to be hunting _me_ , dearie.” He snorted.

With a wave of his hand, it found itself back on the path, stumbling and disoriented.

This time, he only made it two steps before the little monster was halfway up his calf and still climbing. He could feel the tiny pinpricks of claws nearing his waist and he reached down to detach it and lift it to eye level.

“Go home.” He growled, using his best ‘scary dark one’ voice.

The kitten watched his mouth move curiously without any apparent fear of his tone or expression, twitched an ear, then reached out and patted his nose with one soft, tiny paw.

He froze.

It blinked and cocked its head.

For the first time, he really _registered_ how skinny it was, more than could be explained by a few days in the woods, how dirty, and how _alone…_

Its tiny ribs were clearly visible through its fur.

…He tried not to remember what it had felt like to be starving, alone, and abandoned in an unfamiliar world.

Taking his lack of movement as permission (or an opportunity), it squirmed out of his loose grip and climbed its way down his arm, aiming for his shoulder.

It was young and adaptable with spirit and curiosity, he reminded himself. It would be fine. It was really no business of _his_ where this random cat had come from. Even if it was alone, it would be happy in the woods – cats were solitary creatures that excelled at hunting. Besides, he was the _Dark One_. He couldn’t have a _kitten, e_ specially not in his current fragile state of health.

Even if its eyes _did_ remind him of Belle.

Finally reaching his shoulder, the tiny, dirty animal snuggled up against his neck, batting at strands of his hair that dangled too close. He tensed, unused to physical contact, but it just rubbed its head against his cheek and started purring.

He could feel the gentle vibration all the way down to his bones and he stayed perfectly still as soft fur brushed against his skin. At the tiny creature’s innocent acceptance, something inside his chest softened. He reached up and ran a gentle finger over its small head.

Well, damn. He couldn’t just leave it out here.

Maybe Belle would want a cat.

He set off for the cabin, passenger in tow.

Ursula and Cruella were never going to believe this.

* * *

The kitten’s reception went as well as could be expected.

Asleep when he returned, and hungover the morning after, it took Cruella and Ursula almost a full day to even notice the tiny interloper. By then, Rumple had cleaned it up (manually, not magically) and found that beneath the mud, blood, and leaves was a long-haired pale grey female kitten with faint tabby stripes on her back and white markings on her nose, chest, stomach, front paws, tip of the tail, and over both eyebrows. He’d entertained a brief, fleeting hope before her bath that she would be black – a proper menacing sorcerer’s familiar in form if not function, but she was possibly the least intimidating animal he’d ever seen…and not just because she was tiny and fuzzy. The white splotches on her face gave her an eternally quizzical look that he could already tell would follow her into adulthood. She was adorable.

Belle would have loved her.

He used magic to ‘acquire’ the necessary supplies from town, but the kitten didn’t seem interested in any of the toys or the bed he got for her. She’d apparently adopted him as her protector and refused to leave his side. Even if he set her on the floor and walked away, he couldn’t get two steps without feeling the now-familiar pinpricks of her claws at his ankle. He didn’t try very hard to convince her to leave him alone – she quickly became a fixture either in his pocket or on his shoulder while he was in the cabin and roaming the building while he was out.

When Cruella and Maleficent noticed her for the first time, sitting on his shoulder and alternately batting at and chewing on the tips of his hair, they stared in dumbfounded silence and then cracked up with hysterical laughter.

Rumple rolled his eyes and ignored them.

However, when he left the kitten behind for half an hour to complete some business in town, and returned to find Cruella trying to sweet talk the little animal off the roof after her control abilities somehow got it up there and then failed once her target was out of reach, he read her the riot act.

He was surprised the resulting explosion of dark magic didn’t draw every hero in Storybrooke to his front door.

_“Let me be perfectly clear, dearie.” He growled, voice low. “You will not touch the cat, physically or magically. It is NOT your concern.”_

_Pinned against the side of the cabin by his magic, Cruella shifted uncomfortably, trying not to wince as the bruises she’d gained when Rumple threw her away from the beast with his magic brushed against the rough wood. Apparently, he’d forgotten that most humans weren’t as durable as the Dark One. Or he didn’t care._

_“Darling…”_

_“Are we **clear** , Cruella?”_

_No giggle, no wordplay, no sarcasm, no dealing…he was serious. Cruella swallowed._

_“Of course.”_

_“Good.”_

_She fell to the ground, hissing as her bruises complained, but didn’t dare protest with him in such a dangerous mood. She didn’t understand what had set him off…it was just an animal. She used them in her magic all the time._

_Then she looked up and noticed the way the tiny kitten was cradled protectively against his chest, the gentle grip of his hands at odds with the fire in his eyes and the snarl in his voice. The way it was watching the exchange with wide eyes but apparently not afraid of him despite the truly fearsome aura he was giving off. Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t even considering taking his anger out on the furball despite what an easy target it made._

_“You care about the beast!” She gaped._

_He glowered. “Go help Ursula with Regina. Now.”_

Needless to say, he didn’t leave the kitten alone with her again. Naturally, this meant it stayed by his side, in his pocket or on his shoulder, at all times. Even when he went into town.

When Maleficent joined their numbers, she acknowledged the kitten with a raised eyebrow, but when it didn’t turn out to have any magical properties, she ignored it.

Regina gawked at it until Rumple raised a mocking eyebrow at her, and then she scowled and looked away, refusing to be fazed. He got some perverse pleasure out of letting it climb on his shoulders, or stroking its head and watching Regina out of the corner of his eye as she tried and failed to make sense of him and got more and more irate every time. He was waiting for her to storm up to him and demand to know what was going on but she didn't reach that point before Maleficent put the town under her sleeping spell, and by then it was too late.

* * *

When Rumple received the summons from Belle, he immediately dropped everything and left. For the first time, he even forgot the kitten, leaving her sitting on the table next to The Book (with Isaac eyeing her with an expression that obviously said he wanted to ask, but was afraid he wouldn’t like the answer)…but she didn’t forget him. While he was vanishing, she leapt into his smoke and managed to catch his coat with her claws, intending to pull herself up to his shoulder as she’d done many, many times.

As far as the kitten was concerned, the strange darkness-human belonged to _her_. She had been lost in the dark and the cold, hungry and scared when he found her and saved her. He’d made her warm and given her food, let her cuddle up to him and take comfort in his presence. He was her protector, her companion, and everything she’d ever wanted (even if she didn’t truly know what ‘want’ meant and ‘ever’ was maybe a few weeks of memory). To her young mind, he was the best person _ever_ and she was _never_ going to leave his side.

…But kittens also have limited attention spans and a weakness for shiny, sparkly items. When Rumpelstiltskin arrived at the wishing well to find Belle calling his name, the kitten gave up trying to climb his back and dropped to the grass behind him. Ignorant to the emotional reunion going on overhead, she lashed her tail, crouching to spring up his leg…then stopped.

There was something _shiny_ over there.

She slunk down into a low crouch and glided over the ground away from her person, watching the shiny thing move with wide eyes. It was sticking out from behind a tree on the other side of the clearing and moving back and forth…but not running away, even though she was stalking it. Maybe it was scared. Maybe it was prey!

(She didn’t notice in the background as the tearful reunion between her person and the strange human shifted in tone.)

Mere feet away from her prey, she crouched low, wiggling her hind end and extending her claws in excitement. She was going to catch it! She was a hunter!

Without warning, she lunged forward, dashing the last three feet and sinking her teeth and claws into her target.

Which turned out to be the reflection glinting off the high heeled shoe of Regina Mills. Who abruptly had a set of _very_ sharp kitten fangs digging into her ankle and claws digging into her calf.

“ ** _Sunuva-!_** _”_

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin reeled back almost comically in surprise as a sudden string of unexpected curses and invectives fell from Belle’s mouth. He literally stumbled back and opened his mouth to inquire if she was alright, but it only took him half a second to realize the actual _source_ of the invectives – the _loud_ source – was elsewhere.

He vanished in a plume of red smoke and appeared behind Regina just as she threw her hands out for balance, inadvertently waving a pulsing bright red heart in his face, and kicked out at something on the ground.

Something that yowled in pain.

Instant understanding filled him, followed by pure fury.

He snatched the heart out of her loose grip before she even realized he was there, and threw her across the clearing with a wave of his arm. She hit the ground hard but managed to scramble upright, panic overriding the pain in her ankle. Before she could retaliate or even reach her feet, Rumpelstiltskin lashed out with his magic in the same move he’d used just the other day with Cruella, and the sorceress found herself pinned against the nearest tree-trunk with so much force that she was straining to breathe. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she looked at his twisted, angry expression.

“Regina.” He snarled.

Before she could respond (not that she knew what to say, what protest could possibly save her life), the sound of running footsteps interrupted them.

“Rumple?” Belle came around the tree, expression anxious and puzzled. “What’s going on-?” She stopped dead at the sight in front of her, of Regina very close to being crushed to death and the Dark One obviously willing to push her over the edge, and her eyes widened. “Regina-? Rumpelstiltskin, put her down!”

“She took your heart!”

“ _What?_ ”

“I needed leverage-!“ Regina finally managed to wheeze out, but the looks she got were far from sympathetic.

“So you took my _heart?!_ ” Belle’s horror and disgust finally seemed to hit a chord in Regina and she glanced down and to the side, faint shame on her face.

The Dark One snarled and that seemed to snap Belle back to the immediate danger of the situation. She stepped in front of him and gave him a no-nonsense glower. “Put her _down_ , Rumple.” She ordered, tone firm.

“But-.”

“ _Now._ ”

Irritably, he complied, dropping the queen none-too-gently to the ground where she landed on her knees and scrambled upright, holding her hands in guard position and watching them warily. Instead of talking, (she rightly guessed that he was ready to attack her at the slightest misstep, despite Belle’s restraining presence), she backed away until she was clear on the other side of the clearing. Then she vanished in a plume of violet smoke, no doubt to regroup.

Rumpelstiltskin shot her vanishing figure a vicious glare, but he was more interested in the heart cradled protectively in his hands. For a moment, he looked down at it and felt his own heart shatter. Belle hadn’t done any of this of her own free will. Everything she had said and felt had been Regina’s doing. She probably hadn’t even wanted to summon him.

“Rumple?” His (ex?) wife’s small hand touched his arm tentatively and he looked into her worried eyes.

“Hold on, Sweetheart.” He smiled, small and strained. “This will only take a moment.” As gently as possible, he put one hand on her unresisting shoulder and used the other to firmly (but gently. Always gently) push her heart back into place. She gasped in sudden disorientation, stumbling at the return of sensation, and he immediately let go, pulling away and taking several large paces back. He doubted she would want to be anywhere near him when she realized what Regina had forced her to do.

“Mrow?”

Startled at the familiar sound, he looked down, realizing the kitten was not in either of its customary spots in his coat. After a moment of searching for the source of the call, he found her huddled at the base of a tree, watching the humans with wide eyes and trembling like a leaf. When she noticed him looking at her, she uncurled from her tight, terrified position and crept towards him, limping noticeably.

Then he remembered…Regina had _kicked_ something before he pushed her away.

Only the memory of Belle’s scolding kept him from going after his former student again.

He purposely did not look at his True Love as he bent down and gently picked up the kitten, passing a magical scan over her body and finding three bruised ribs and a mild concussion. Thankfully, Regina hadn’t managed to hit the cat _that_ hard…but her actions were still inexcusable. The next pass of his hand healed the injuries completely and the kitten relaxed in his hands. He stroked a thumb lightly over her head and then set her on his shoulder where she curled against his neck, hiding as much as possible in his hair and collar.

Then he did what he’d been dreading: he looked back at Belle.

She was watching him with her head cocked and a strange curl to her lips. Had he not known she was probably ready to toss him out of Storybrooke all over again, he might have thought she was smiling.

“I…apologize for this, dearie.” He said, voice thick with regret. If he’d _known_ … “I wasn’t aware you were not in control. I wouldn’t have…” He wouldn’t have forced her to listen to his rambling, nor would he have forced her to bear his kiss had he known she didn’t want it. He swallowed and stepped away, wanting nothing so much as to crawl in a hole and wallow in his misery.

“Apologize for what?” She didn’t _sound_ upset…

“For forcing you.” He refused to meet her eyes, instead staring at the tree line where Regina had disappeared. One hand came up to pet the kitten; a recently acquired nervous gesture that the little animal took full advantage of by rubbing her head against his hand. “I’ll not burden you with my presence any longer.”

“Wait.”

He froze in the act of waving his arm, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Belle’s expression _still_ wasn’t angry or disgusted…just sort of sad _._

“Were you telling the truth?” Her voice cracked. “Are you really…dying?”

“In a manner of speaking.” He sighed and slumped. “Everything I said was true.”

She stepped around in front of him, so close that he was forced to meet her eyes.

“My words were my own, Rumple. I didn’t know Regina had my heart, but it doesn’t matter. I meant everything I said.” At her sincerity, a fission of hope returned to Rumpelstiltskin. Tentatively, he reached out, but left his hand hovering in front of her shoulder, uncertain, until she reached up and clasped it in her own hand, winding their fingers together until he had no hope of escape. “…At least, I was in control up until she started cursing.”

He let out a broken chuckle, mirrored by a faint smile on her face.

“What happened? Do you know?” She asked.

“Oh, I’d imagine it had to do with this little rascal.” He gestured at the kitten on his shoulder, and frowned. “Regina kicked her.”

Belle looked between him and the kitten, nonplussed, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t know _what_ to say. She must have noticed his sheepishness because her smile grew. The kitten was quite obviously his, if only because he wasn’t protesting its presence on his shoulder. He didn’t even seem to notice that it was now chewing on a strand of his hair.

Her free hand came up to his shoulder and he held still as she extended her fingertips to the kitten, making quiet cooing noises. It watched her with wide eyes, sniffed her fingers cautiously, and then curled back shyly against Rumple’s neck, never letting go of his hair.

“…What’s its name?”

“…She’s a cat. She doesn’t have a name.” He grumbled, but the protest lacked teeth. Honestly, he just hadn’t thought of one yet. Names held power, after all, and he wanted something truly _suitable_.

Belle shot him a vaguely admonitory look, and then turned a soft expression on the kitten.

“She’s scared…”

“Well, she did just win a fight against the evil queen.” He quipped nervously, drawing a startled laugh from his wife.

“Maybe…” She hesitated, eyeing him with uncertainty, then took a deep breath and gripped his hand even tighter (as if he’d run away _now_ ). “She might be happier somewhere quieter. Would you like to move…this…to the pawnshop? We can…talk there.”

He shifted, not sure if he should be happy or uncertain. He didn’t know what she wanted to talk about…but there was a _lot_ that they needed to discuss. It didn’t matter what it was – Belle was _here_ and she _wanted_ to be with him. He’d follow her to the ends of the earth and back if she wanted.

“I’d like that.”

Instead of using magic, he followed her on foot when she turned to leave. She never let go of his hand and he never tried to get away.

The kitten settled against his neck, chewing contentedly, and started to purr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Feel free to make suggestions for future chapters! I want to make this series ten installments long (five left), but now that the season’s over, I’m having some trouble coming up with inspiration.
> 
> 2\. (FYI, I call the kitten ‘Kujo’. Belle calls her ‘Smudge’. She’s loosely based on a kitten I really knew a while ago. The RL kitten loved my hair and it got so bad that I stopped trying to untangle her – I just let her hang on until she became distracted by something shiny or bright and took off again.).
> 
> 3\. I'm now on tumblr! My name is 'villainsarebetter', and I"ll be posting random rumbelle themed stuff including fanfiction. I hope I see you there!


	7. Chapter 7

**_6\. When the Apprentice is released from the Hat early, Rumpelstiltskin’s plans unravel in unpredictable ways_ **

When all was said and done, Belle found Rumpelstiltskin at Baelfire’s grave.

She understood now what had happened in New York and the reasons behind his actions with the hat. She’d listened alongside the townspeople and the Charming family as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the (semi-reluctant) Author explained it all in simplified terms that even those not familiar with magic could understand.

She’d started the meeting with grim anger and steely resolve in her heart, ready to help the heroes take down her husband…but it quickly changed to confusion, then horror, and finally confused remorse and worry. Everyone else had reacted with unease but no regret. They were more than willing to see him dead, no matter what he’d sacrificed to save them or what he’d been through at Zelena’s hands.

And at Belle’s hands.

Apparently, she’d left him like _that_ (the sound of his begging and the knowledge that she’d left him to die haunted her more than ever now that she knew he’d _actually been dying_ ) when he really had been trying to protect her. She’d done what she’d sworn to herself she would never do; used his dagger against him. She’d broken and abandoned him when he needed her the most and left him at _Zelena’s_ mercy on the other side of the town line. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t known. She’d hadn’t asked. She shouldn’t have forbidden him to explain himself while controlling him with the dagger…even if he should have explained long before that point.

She slipped out of the town hall unnoticed, feeling sick to her stomach. Behind her, debate still raged over the fate of her husband, but she knew they wouldn’t listen to her. They hadn’t in the past, and since Rumple’s return they seemed even less likely to value her input. In fact, they kept her out of the loop altogether most of the time. (It still hurt that they _already knew_ most of the information the Sorcerer’s Apprentice told the town, and they hadn’t bothered to tell her. Rumple was her _husband_ and he was _dying_.)

The only thing she could do was find Rumple before they did and…and…and _what_?

She doubted he would listen to her, not after what happened at the town line and the way he’d been acting since his return. He wouldn’t care that the town wanted him dead, that they wanted to take him down despite the proof of his humanity presented by the Apprentice. He obviously had a plan of his own, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was. All she could really do was search for him and hope their love hadn’t been completely destroyed.

And hope that its loss had not destroyed what was left of Rumple’s soul for good.

The most likely place for him to be was in the cabin in the woods. Even with the other villains dead or defected, that was where he’d set up his ‘lair’ and where he’d mostly stayed since coming back to Storybrooke. That was where the heroes had confronted the queens of darkness more than once and where the Apprentice had talked the Author into joining them. (Although Belle had seen the sullen, resentful way that Isaac watched the old man; most of the others took it for granted that he wanted to be free of Rumpelstiltskin, but she wasn’t so sure about his trustworthiness.)

However, the cabin was also public knowledge (quite literally, at this point) and Rumple probably knew that the heroes would come looking for him sooner rather than later. The call for the town meeting had been loud and public, so if he’d been anywhere in the vicinity, he also knew most of Storybrooke was distracted this afternoon. If he needed to do anything in town or to move his lair, this was the perfect time.

Belle wandered the streets, trying to think like her husband. What would make a good hiding place? Would he even come into town? With his magic he could make whatever sort of lair he wanted in the woods…but the Apprentice seemed to think he’d be avoiding magic as much as possible in order to maintain what was left of his soul. Would he need medical care? Drugs for his heart? Transportation? Was he using his cane again?

There were too many questions. Without knowing his goal, Belle could not predict his actions. And he obviously didn’t trust her ( _why_ had it ever seemed like a good idea to use the dagger like that?) so he might be actively trying to avoid anywhere she would normally consider, or where he knew she thought he would go. He was too clever, too paranoid, and too slippery for her to predict unless he purposely kept her informed…and he’d stopped doing that even before she’d banished him.

However, even as her mind scrambled for answers, her instincts steered her aimless feet in the right direction.

Before she knew it, she was walking down the sidewalk across from the church and coming up on the graveyard. There was no reason for her to be there; Rumple would _never_ voluntarily pick a hideout so close to the fairies and even if he was forced for some reason, there were no vacant properties in the area. No one would think to look for him there because there was absolutely no reason for him to be there, not with a plot in progress.

So Belle was shocked when she looked up and saw a very familiar form across the street.

For a moment, she froze and simply watched, mentally blessing the fickle luck that had finally given her a break.

Next to the church was the graveyard, and in the graveyard, sitting on a bench in front of a very familiar grave (a bench which had definitely _not_ been there a couple hours ago), sat her husband. He was the only figure in sight; with everyone at the town meeting discussing how to take down the Dark One, Storybrooke was all but deserted. It was the perfect time for an excluded villain to commit nefarious deeds without consequence.

Instead, Rumpelstiltskin had visited his son.

Looking at the obvious grief in his hunched posture, her heart both twisted and sang; the pain over Bae’s death would never truly go away, but if he was able to _feel_ that pain, then the Apprentice’s fears were unfounded. If her husband’s soul had been completely destroyed, he wouldn’t be able to feel anything for anyone, not even his son. She didn’t know where she fit into his heart anymore, but he’d once called her a flicker of light in an ocean of darkness, and she had no doubt they were True Love which was something that never died. Maybe there was enough space left in his heart for her as well?

It had been months since she’d spoken to her husband (with the exception of his Hook illusion) and the very sight of him made her stomach flutter, but it was more in confusion than excitement. She was happy that he wasn’t dead, of course, but she was also contrite about what she’d learned (and her part in his condition) and despite everything, she was also still upset that he’d lied to her and tried to kill Hook.

However, that wasn’t a reason to avoid him, especially since she’d come out here with the express purpose of finding him. He might not be willing to tell her his plans, he might not even be willing to listen to her, but she had to try.

She took a deep bracing breath and walked across the street, subconsciously muffling her footsteps as much as possible so they wouldn’t echo in the silence. But it still wasn’t enough to escape Rumple’s radar.

She saw the moment he registered the presence of an intruder; his shoulders stiffened, his back straightened, and he peered over his shoulder, expression distinctly unfriendly (bordering on murderous). However, when he saw who it was, the expression dropped, his eyes widened, and he shot to his feet, almost stumbling as he hastily turned to face her. He’d been fiddling with something in one hand, but it vanished into his pocket before she could get a good look at it.

He stood there, strung tight as a piano wire, tension radiating from the rigid set of his shoulders and watched her approach like a dying man in the desert catching a glimpse of water. But he didn’t move towards her.

She stopped a few meters away and looked at him, taking in the way his clothes seemed too large, his pallor too grey. There were circles under his eyes and his usually impeccable clothes and hair were ruffled in a way he never normally would have allowed in public. He didn’t look healthy.

However, she was more put off by the way he looked at her. She’d expected anger or rejection, or at least wariness. Any possibility that he’d be contrite or beg forgiveness for his actions had flown out the window when he hadn’t approached her as soon as he returned, and she knew that he knew she was seeing Will (something which now made her heart squeeze uncomfortably), so she hadn’t anticipated any positive reaction from him. At best, she’d expected to confront his neutral mask.

But there was nothing neutral about the emotions shining from his eyes, or the way he simultaneously seemed to gravitate towards her and flinch away, all without moving his feet.

A long, awkward minute passed before she realized he was waiting for her to break the silence.

She tried a small smile, but knew it looked false. “Hello.”

He rubbed his hands together and tried a slight smile of his own, which came off as more genuine…and also more than a little bit desperate. “Hello, Belle.”

“Rumple, I…” How could she possibly approach this? She was angry at him, and did not trust him, but she also loved him and felt sorry for how she’d treated him. But her own feelings were unimportant next to what the Apprentice had said was happening to her husband. She looked away and her eyes lit on the bench. It was a simple stone carved piece of furniture with an intricate flower design on the feet and arms. “Did you make that?”

“What?” He turned to look, confused by the non-sequitur and then shrugged. “I borrowed it from the church.” His mouth twisted. “The fairies won’t miss it.”

She tilted an exasperated look at him but he didn’t look repentant, just confused and uncomfortable. Though there was still that reverent, amazed shine to eyes when he looked at her that reminded her of when she’d just been rescued from Regina and he’d found out she was still alive. The shine that made her feel special, like she was the most valuable thing on the planet in his eyes.

It had been a while since she’d felt anything like that.

But instead of making her feel good, she just felt more conflicted.

“Belle, what are you doing here?” He freed a hand, as if to reach out to her, but self-consciously smoothed the front of his coat instead. “Shouldn’t you be off planning with the heroes?” And there was a vicious bite to the final word that she hadn’t heard before, that was truly worrying.

She sighed and walked past him to sit on the bench. Slowly, as if waiting for her to reject his movements and pull away, he sat down next to her, mere inches away. He was so close that she could feel his body heat.

“I was at the town meeting.” She confessed quietly. He didn’t tense up or pull away– he’d obviously expected that she would be with the heroes trying to take him down. Somehow, his lack of reaction - his expectation of betrayal - hurt. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice told us about the curse of the Dark One.”

This time, he did tense and let his breath out a hissing sigh that was more like a snarl. “Hm.”

She hugged her arms to her chest, still not looking at him, and whispered: “He said you’re dying.”

He didn’t respond, but when she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, his expression was torn. His hand was fiddling with the same pocket she’d seen him fuss with when she’d first arrived, but he didn’t seem to notice. When he allowed the silence to drag out without responding, she pressed on.

“Is he right?”                              

“Belle…”

“Rumple. Are you…” Her voice broke. “Are you really dying?”

He sighed, but relaxed, defeated, and she knew she’d won some answers at the very least. She just hoped they were honest ones.

“It isn’t that simple, my dear. My heart…well. Perhaps you should see for yourself.”

“…What?” She turned to look at him, just in time to see his hand sink into his chest. “ _Rumple!_ ” She yelped in protest.

But her reaction was cut off when she saw the heart he withdrew. It was… _black._ She hadn’t had much cause to look at hearts in the past, but she knew they were supposed to be red (for heroes) or black-spotted red (for villains), but more importantly, they were supposed to be _shaped like hearts._

The heart in Rumple’s hand was completely round, more like a ball of charcoal than anything organic. It didn’t even bear a passing resemblance to what it should have looked like.

She looked at it in horror, then up to him for an explanation. “I don’t understand. Is that really-?”

“My heart? After a fashion.” His expression was peculiar as he looked at it rather than meeting Belle’s eyes. Not exactly regretful or upset…more wistful. Maybe sad. “I have done a great many evil deeds in my lifetime, Belle, and that, well, that leaves a mark.” He tilted the heart so she could see a tiny glimmer of red at the very center of the dark mass. “Technically, I suppose, _that_ is my heart.”

When he lapsed into silence rather than explaining, she prompted him. “What does that mean?”

He sighed. “The curse… a good analogy for it would be tar. In the beginning, it was simply a layer of oozing darkness on the surface of my heart, but over time it thickened and infected further and further into my heart. Every time I used the curse’s magic or succumbed to its influence, the tar thickened and the pressure increased.

“It…crushed your heart?” Belle whispered, horrified.

He shrugged. “It's not quite that straightforward. Suffice to say, the darkness has claimed my heart.”

“But there’s still some red.” She pointed out, desperately. What he was describing sounded _horrific._ Had he known all along? Had it hurt? Why hadn’t he _told_ her?

He chuckled brokenly. “I have you to thank for that, Belle. You and Bae. The love I felt for the two of you kept me alive far longer than any other Dark One. But it won’t last much longer; the darkness has finally proven too strong.”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” The last thing she wanted to do was make this about her…but she just couldn’t understand. He’d been dealing with this the entire time they’d been together; she didn’t know how she could have made a difference, but she could have done _something._ He wouldn’t have been suffering _alone._ Did he really trust her so little?

“You were happy.” He replied, simply. As if that was all that mattered. To him, maybe it was. He looked down and hunched his shoulders in shame. “You deserved better than to be bothered because I’m too weak to handle my problems.”

The words felt like a blow directly to her heart. He’d been dying, and he’d hidden it to keep her happy. She closed her eyes.

“How long?”

“Hm?”

“How long have you known what it would do to you?”

“Everything has a price. I’ve always done my best to balance it.” He returned his heart to his chest and shifted to lean back on the bench, looking suddenly exhausted. “But it has been worse since…since the Vault.”

Since Zelena.

“Rumple…” She wanted to reassure him, to tell him she would have been there for him when he needed her, if he’d just _told_ her… but it was too late for that. And she couldn’t help feeling a little bit responsible – all of the warning signs had been there, physical and mental red flags that _should_ have told her there was something wrong with him, but she’d been so _happy_ …and so willing to bury herself in that happiness that she hadn’t looked beyond appearances.

And the one time he _had_ tried to tell her, she had used the Dagger to forbid it and forced him across the town line, into an unforgiving unfamiliar world where he’d nearly died.

She curled her arms over her stomach miserably. “Isn’t there any way to save you? You must have a plan…you always have a plan.”

“Sweetheart…” He paused, looking uncomfortable, and she realized he hadn’t meant to use the endearment. He shook it off after a minute, giving her a small broken smile. “Belle, it’s alright. This isn’t your responsibility. If the thief makes you happy…”

She didn’t understand for a moment, what he was saying or why it seemed to cause him so much pain to say it.

Then she realized; he was giving her his blessing to move on. He wasn’t blaming her for anything, and he wasn’t asking for help. He wanted her to be happy, even if it wasn’t with him. Even if it hurt him horribly _._ And he expected her to turn around and leave him to his fate. He was trying to sooth her conscience so she would feel okay about abandoning him to die.

“He’s not you.”

The look he turned on her was wide-eyed and utterly shocked, but there was a faint glimmer of hope buried in his eyes.

“Rumple…” She sighed. Acting on instinct, she reached out and put one hand on the side of his face, looking deep into his eyes. He blinked and leaned into her touch, but otherwise did not move, waiting expectantly for her to finish her thought. “I’m not in love with Will. But…you need to start _talking_ to me. If you’d told me about your heart before that mess with the snow queen-.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to -.”

“At least you wouldn’t have been alone!” He jumped and jerked back at her suddenly loud tone, surprised by how emphatic she was and Belle bit back a curse. Loud noises, especially yelling, had been hard for him to handle since escaping Zelena. Apparently, that hadn’t changed.

“Belle, I’m sorry.”

She laughed quietly, bitterly, at the irony. “Me too.”

They sat back, looking at Bae’s grave and letting the silence stretch for a moment, lost in their own thoughts. He was fidgety and kept touching the pocket of his coat, but never pulled out whatever was inside. He also kept shooting her disbelieving, awed looks that darted away as soon as she tried to catch his eye or smile at him.

He really wasn’t doing well.

Belle was the one to break the silence. “So what’s the plan?”

“The plan?”

“You always have a plan.”

He looked at her and she could feel him weighing the pros and cons of telling her. It hurt, that he wouldn’t tell her immediately, but she understood why. From his perspective, she’d been on the side of the heroes, currently his enemies, ever since she’d banished him. And he was far, far too used to being betrayed. But finally, he caved.

His fidgeting hand reached into his pocket and withdrew as a fist, opening to reveal an oddly shaped bottle of ink.

Belle blinked at it, then up at his expectant, nervous expression. Apparently she was supposed to know what it was.

“What is that?”

“Ink.”

He smiled. A true, genuine smile when she shot him an exasperated look and she found herself smiling in return.

“It’s a very special sort of ink.” He elaborated. “It…can be used to write in the Story Book.”

“The Author.” Belle breathed in realization.

Rumple nodded. “At this point…he’s our last hope. If I can get him to rewrite the story…”

“Rumple…”

“…to remove the Dark One’s curse…!”

“Rumple. Stop.”

The eyes that turned on her were desperate and she swallowed. “You can’t re-write the book.” She said as gently as possible.

“Not all of it, of course. But the Dark One…”

“You…want to erase the curse?”

The idea boggled her mind. _That_ was the big evil plan that had all of the townspeople terrified? The destruction of the Dark One’s curse?’

“Well, I wouldn’t _mind_ a happy ending…”

“Rumple.”

“It’s our last chance.” And she could see the desperation in his wideness of his eyes and the white strain on his knuckles. But there was something about his words that bothered her (well, many things, but one that stood out).

“When you say ‘our’, who are you talking about?”

“Everyone.” He seemed surprised to be asked. “Belle, when my soul is gone, The Dark One will have full control of my body and abilities. I will be dead, but the Dark One will be left unfettered in my place.”

That hadn’t even occurred to her. That _something_ would take over his body and destroy him from the inside out, turning what was left of him into a monster…but it was already working on him, wasn’t it? _That_ thought made her blood run cold.

“And there is no other way?”

He shook his head. “The hat and the elixir…they might have worked, a few months ago. It’s too late now.”

“Maybe…The Author doesn’t need to rewrite the whole story, does he? You just need him to write a few lines, to take away the curse of the Dark One?”

“Ideally, yes. However, I don’t know how integral the Dark One is for the course of the story. It could require quite a bit of restructuring.”

Belle remembered the way the Author had glowered at everyone during the meeting. She had a feeling Isaac would be more than willing to alter the story as much as possible. Even if Rumple didn’t care to change more than was absolutely necessary, he wasn’t going to be the one creating the new pages.

“How will you control what the Author puts in?”

“I’ve talked to him.” Rumple explained ambiguously. “He seems sympathetic.”

Belle frowned. “Sympathetic to who?”

“The villains.”

“Rumple…”

“Belle, this is the last hope. Everyone’s last hope.”

“Surely, if you just talked to them…”

“To who? The heroes? How long after I was banished did they wait to celebrate, exactly? How long did it take after my return did it take them to demand the Dagger, to call for my enslavement?”

Belle’s mouth snapped closed. She didn’t necessarily agree with his perspective, but she could tell from the bitter tone that she wasn’t going to convince him to go to them, not soon enough to make a difference, anyway.

“…What about the Apprentice?”

He grumbled.

“Rumple, please. I don’t trust the Author. The Apprentice reigned him in before…maybe he would do it again? And I’m sure he’d be happy to help remove the curse. He seems like a private person; I don’t think he’d tell the heroes anything unless they absolutely had to know.”

“…I suppose.”

It was a reluctant agreement, but an agreement nonetheless. Belle reached out and closed her hand over his wrist.

“Please try.” She entreated quietly, letting her sincerity shine through.

He visibly softened in the line of his shoulders and the curve of his neck. “Alright. We can try.”

With someone so powerful on the side of Light to keep the Author in line while he was writing out the Dark One’s curse, surely nothing could go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoiler Alert:** Something goes wrong. (As always. XD)
> 
> -
> 
> Also, I recently posted my RCIJ fic "Siren's Song" (to this account and on tumblr). The summary is: 
> 
> "Belle learned the Siren’s charm out of simple curiosity and a love of adventure stories and fantastical beasts…but she never expected it to be effective against the Dark One."
> 
> It's a bit of a play on the old "music soothes the savage beast" quote. If that sounds interesting to you, then I hope you'll go check it out. :)


End file.
